In the Shadows
by ncfan
Summary: "Before I knew it, I had a wife I did not know. I did not love her, but nor did I dislike her." He stares through her as though she is made of smoke, and she feels as though she shares this house with a stranger.
1. Lifeless Eyes

I've been wondering about Kinzo's wife, and what she must have been like. I mean, we don't know if she ever really loved him, but we know that she was jealous enough of him that when she started to suspect that he had a mistress, she became incredibly paranoid. We know next to nothing about her, and yet despite that, as the mother of Krauss, Eva, Rudolf and Rosa, she's an incredibly important character for the influence she must have had on them. So I got curious, and I decided to write.

I'm afraid I have a bad habit of starting a lot of things at once and having to juggle them as a result, but this won't have too many chapters, so it should be okay. I hope you all enjoy it.

I own nothing.

* * *

_Lifeless Eyes_

* * *

The stiff, translucent white wataboshi hood is low over her head, even more like a shroud than usual thanks to how her head is bowed, eyes downcast. The thick white makeup makes her skin itch, the pins in her auburn hair dig at her scalp, and her snowy kimono, with all its layers and drapery, feels so heavy on her shoulders that she's amazed she hasn't collapsed under its weight, but she's not complaining. This is the last time she'll be able to wear the kimonos she loves so much—soon, she'll have to discard them for the bulky, cumbersome, too-tight dresses so favored by European women. Her soon-to-be husband, she's told, is a great lover of European culture, to the extent that he disdains nearly all things traditionally Japanese; dressing like a European woman will please him, she's told.

Staring straight ahead, she can't see any of the people standing on the sidelines, serving as witnesses—the wataboshi hood sees to that. She feels like a horse wearing blinders, forced to keep her eyes straight and center, never allowed to see what's going on in the world around her. No fresh, moving air hits her face; all she feels instead is the stale air that has lived in this half-lit room for a thousand years. She tells herself that this will be over soon enough, and she'll be allowed to remove the hood and see the world once more.

Shizuka can only hope it's worth it.

They stand, silent, waiting for the moment to come when they will be declared husband and wife. The priest drones on, the purification ritual taking what seems an eternity. Shizuka just wants this part of the ceremony to be done so they can move on, but at the same time, she's nervous. _I hope I don't spill the sake, _Shizuka thinks to herself, _or that he doesn't trip on his words with the vows. Mother would never forgive me, and judging from the dour looks on the faces of his family, I don't think he would be forgiven either._

_I don't want him to think I'm a clumsy little girl._

Ushiromiya Kinzo. That's the name of the man she's marrying. He's from an old clan on the decline, known more for mishaps and ill fortune than prestige, but still possessing enough clout that when the elders of that clan made an offer to her parents, they jumped on the opportunity to ally themselves with that house.

Shizuka's never met him before today. The preparations for the wedding were done with almost indecent haste, as though they expected the bride or groom to die unexpectedly, and all the time, while Shizuka was measured for her wedding kimono, while she was rigorously schooled in how to behave around her groom-to-be, she wondered what he looked like.

_Will he have a kind face? _she wondered, staring out the window as her mother snapped her fingers to get her attention. _Will he be kind, kind to the wife he's never met? Will he have the sort of face that laughs often? If I'm to spend the rest of my life with this man, at least let him be a cheerful one._

It seems to Shizuka that girls in fairytales, especially western ones, balk at the idea of arranged marriages. She isn't entirely sure why—it seems a perfectly reasonable arrangement to her; overwhelming emotions aren't the sort of thing that should come into play when choosing who you will spend your life with, only logic and reason. If Shizuka had to guess, she would suppose it's because there's something about passionate love stories that grip the imagination—and there's something in the minds of especially romantic young girls that makes them want to ride off into the sunset with that young man who catches their eye from across the dusty street.

But the passion of heady love soon gives way to the realization that you've married a stranger, and soon you realize that there's nothing that can keep you bound to him. Not love, for passionate love fades all too quickly, and there's nothing of the steady, affectionate love of adulthood in your heart for him. You don't have any interests in common. You don't have children. You don't even have duty to your family to keep you tied to him. You wake up in bed one morning, the sun spilling on your face, and when you look over at him, all you see is a man you defied courtesy and familial piety to marry, and yet, in his face, there is no trace of a person you could honestly spend the rest of your life with.

That sort of fate frightens Shizuka far more than the thought of marrying a man for the sake of her family, and being married to a man who wed her for the sake of his. At least there is that bond to keep them tied together, even if love or even affection is never found. At least there is something they have in common, even if they were forced into this state, shoved up front, bound together for life by people who care nothing for their happiness.

Knowing that she's been all but forgotten, Shizuka chances a glance at Kinzo.

He looks… He looks tired, to be honest, and weary of this whole thing. Whether it's irritation with how long the wedding ceremony takes or a more pervasive ennui Shizuka can't be sure, but though his lips are pressed together politely and there is a careful effort to keep emotion from his face, it's painfully evident that he would rather be anywhere but here.

_I suppose he's not terribly happy with this. _

At least he doesn't look old. Shizuka doesn't know why her mind goes there, and winces, wondering where this moment of vanity came from. But in all honesty, he doesn't; she doesn't think he's that much older than her.

_Maybe he'd wanted to be married to a woman he actually knew first._

He looks… He looks handsome, she thinks, even if his bone-white hair is more fitting of an elderly man and he presently looks so dour that it seems as though he's never smiled in his life. He looks intelligent, but pale, like some ghostly leech has sucked the life right out of him.

_Maybe there was already a woman he planned on marrying._

Despite herself, despite keeping well in mind her mother's voice telling her that a wife's eyes should never be on her husband's face, but downcast instead, modestly, Shizuka stares at him. Maybe the incense-choked air has robbed her of any inhibition, or maybe she wants some sign from him, some sense of solidarity, of camaraderie, of something. After all, in a few minutes, they will be husband and wife. They'll have to spend their whole lives with each other. Surely that counts for something, for some sort of shared bond.

_Please look at me. Please give me some sign that you know I'm here, that I'm not just a ghost in white floating through this room._

Then, the moment comes.

No, not the moment when they are called forward to exchange their cups of sake, and do all that comes after to finalize the ceremony. The moment that comes is the moment when Kinzo finally realizes that there are eyes burning holes into the side of his head, and looks down. In that moment, everyone else in the room seems to vanish from the landscape of her mind—they're not really all that important anymore. Shizuka smiles tentatively.

_We may not ever really love each other. I don't suppose that every couple brought together by their families is that lucky. But we can at least be friends, can't we? We were brought together by the will of the avaricious, people who have no real use for us. That makes us allies of a sort, doesn't it?_

Their eyes meet, and even in the half-light, Shizuka can tell two things about them.

One, is that Kinzo's eyes are as gray as the ocean on a quiet winter's morning, when the sun does not show its face through the thick canopy of cloud.

Two, is that they are as lifeless as the eyes of a porcelain doll—or the cold, lightless eyes of a dead fish. They let in no light and seem to belong to something so dead that for a moment, Shizuka wonders if Kinzo is really just a corpse some necromancer resurrected for the occasion.

She can't hold his gaze any longer; the already stale air sets out to choke her if she tries. Shizuka's eyes return to the floor, and she wonders just what sort of life she'll have with such a man.

* * *

Wow, dark ending there. Anyway, a couple of notes on bridal headgear in Shinto weddings.

Though most Japanese couples nowadays go for Christian-style weddings, since they're less expensive, if any of you have seen pictures of Shinto-style weddings, you'll notice that the bride is usually wearing either a hat or a hood.

The hood, what Shizuka's wearing here, is known as a wataboshi. Before the end of the Edo period (1867), all brides in Japan would have worn this to her wedding. The purpose of the wataboshi is to hide the bride's face from everyone except the groom, and given how big it is, I can see how that would be effective. After the Edo period, however, the "hat", known as a tsuno kakushi (or tsunokakushi), came into existence as well. The purpose of the tsuno kakushi is to hide the bride's "horns of jealousy, ego, and selfishness"—traits considered unfitting for a bride—and to symbolize her intent to become a good, obedient wife to her husband. I thought that having Shizuka wear a wataboshi here would be more appropriate, to sort of create a more oppressive atmosphere for her.


	2. Going Through the Motions

_Going Through the Motions_

* * *

Shizuka is sure that the world must still be turning and that the months are gradually heading towards dark winter, but to her, all the days seem exactly the same. She feels as though she's suspended in a snow globe, seeing the same thing play out over and over again. She feels as though her world has ground to a complete and total halt.

Sunlight filters hot and bright through the window, heralding the morning sun. Shizuka tugs uncomfortably at her high, stiff collar as she sits at the vanity, brushing out her long hair. A month of this, and she still hasn't managed to get used to wearing these constrictive western dresses.

Everything about her new clothes feels like a cage made from velvet and silk, conspiring to keep her from moving with anything resembling freedom. The sleeves are stiff and tight, allowing her only to move her arms in jerky, almost mechanical fashion. The layers upon layers of skirts get tangled in her legs and it's all she can do not to fall flat on her face. And the bodice of her dress is without a doubt the worst. It cinches too tight around the waist, forces the breasts up and fits so snugly across her belly and her chest that she can barely breathe. Each breath Shizuka takes feels like she's swinging a hammer down on her own lungs. She doesn't know how the western women who apparently so favor these sorts of dresses go about their daily lives without suffocating or breaking their ribs.

Oh well. Shizuka will not be caught complaining about such a thing. It would be to the detriment of the Ushiromiya family's dignity to do so. And if, maybe, dressing this way will please her husband, then Shizuka will brave the discomfort.

What she was told about Kinzo being enamored of western culture has proven to be true. Indeed, he does seem to be obsessed with all things western.

The interior of their home in Odawara is furnished entirely with western furniture and decorations. No futons, but instead beds raised high off the ground—though in this case, at least, Shizuka is willing to admit that the soft, downy mattress of the bed is far more comfortable than any futon she's ever slept in. Lamps and chairs and couches. Chiffarobes and chaise lounges and writing desks. All of these things are built in designs Shizuka is sure Kinzo saw first in foreign catalogues smelling of dust and mothballs.

Then, there are the books.

Shizuka could not help but be in awe of Kinzo's great library when first she laid eyes on it. A large room on the second floor has had its walls devoured by books. Big books, little books, fat books, thin books. They are found packed in tightly on the shelves, and overflowing in stacks on the floors or sitting precariously on the ledge of whatever shelf still has room. It would take a lifetime to read so many books, Shizuka can't help but think. It would take a lifetime, a lifetime and two sets of eyes, to read them.

She also couldn't help but be a little excited. Shizuka does love to read, even though that's not the true occupation of a lady—she knows that her hands would be better engaged with ikebana or embroidery or charitable works. In the narrow sphere of her world, books are the best windows she has to the outside world.

These windows, however, are all covered in paint.

None of the books are in Japanese.

And of course, through all of these foreign things, things shipped from distant lands and still smelling of the warehouses they must have sat in, is the huge, ornate vanity Shizuka sits in front of now. She stops her long strokes with the hairbrush, and stares at her reflection, the silence draping its heavy fingers across her shoulders.

_What is it that's wrong with me?_

The first night… Shizuka's face flushes and she bites her lip. It's not ladylike to even think of such things; she knows that much. But the first night, their wedding night, what happened after the lights were doused and the curtains drawn shut was probably the most amount of attention Kinzo has paid her since they were pronounced man and wife.

Though they have seen each other very day, in the morning and the evenings, for all the meals taken down in the dining room, and sometimes even meeting in the halls, Shizuka feels as though she has spent all her days alone, without another person in all the world to keep her company. When they sit next to one another, or pass each other in the hall, Kinzo doesn't speak to her, stop to greet her, or even nod his head to acknowledge that he's seen his wife. He stares straight through her with those glassy gray eyes of his, stares through her as though she's made of smoke.

_Why is he ignoring me? I can understand if he's not happy about being married to a woman he's never met, but we are married now. Shouldn't we take this time to get to know each other, to form some sort of bond?_

_I understand if you're angry about having been forced into a situation you didn't agree to—as the head of the Ushiromiya family, I'm sure you don't like to be forced into anything by the people who ought to answer to you. But please don't spend your life brooding about it._

…_Is… Is there something wrong with me, to make you act so coldly towards me?_

With each passing day that she is spoken to only in the most terse, abrupt tones, Shizuka wilts a little. With each day that she spends ignored, her hopes of a happy marriage despite the circumstances under which she and Kinzo came together seem more fantastical, more like the half-baked, distorted, utterly unrealistic dream of a child. She can't believe she's feeling so disappointed, so fearful after just a month, but maybe something about the stifled atmosphere of this house is sapping her of all her hope.

_Why are you so cold? _When Kinzo enters a room Shizuka already finds herself in, or the reverse, the temperature seems to drop a good twenty degrees; though it may be summer outside, but Shizuka expects to see frost on the window and feels as though she ought to draw a shawl about her shoulders. The air grows thick and close, and Kinzo wastes no time in finishing whatever business it was he had in that room and withdrawing, leaving Shizuka alone again. His eyes skim over the top of her head, or he simply overlooks her altogether.

_It… It must be something wrong with me. Surely, after all this time, if he found me likeable, or pleasing, he would have stopped treating me so distantly. Surely if I was satisfactory as his wife, he would have stopped treating me as a stranger by now._

To this, Shizuka finds herself studying her face in the mirror, struggling to discern some sort of defect she could repair and eradicate.

It has been said that a woman's beauty is all she has. Perhaps that's not true in certain circumstances. For a woman born to a working class family, beauty might not be considered the last say on whether or not she's considered a valuable asset to her family. For a woman from such a world, she would probably be considered more useful if she was healthy enough to do a day's hard work or if she had some sort of practical skill, like weaving or cooking. At least in a working class family a woman is allowed to be actively involved in keeping her family afloat.

Not so for the women of the sphere Shizuka inhabits.

If she has learned one thing in her life, Shizuka knows that rich men looking to marry a woman care about only two things: the wealth of her father, and the form of her body. She knows that if Kinzo takes issue with her in some way, what dissatisfies him isn't the level of wealth and connections marriage with her can provide him with. Her family is wealthy and well-connected—he couldn't possibly be displeased with her on that count.

It must be her face instead.

Shizuka doesn't like to think of herself as ugly. She has grown up hearing family and friends of her parents praise her as "_such a pretty little girl." _There's enough pride, enough vanity in her that she doesn't like to even entertain the thought that she might be anything less than beautiful.

"_Hold still, Shizuka-sama," her nursemaid, an elderly woman with snow white hair bound high on her head, soothes her, as she runs an ornate ivory comb through her charge's hair. "You have such pretty hair. You wouldn't want to go about with it tangled, would you?"_

She reaches a hand up to wind a tendril of her hair between her fingers. Her hair is auburn, looking brown behind walls and red under the sun, soft and fine, falling in gentle, silken waves past her shoulders when not wrapped round a gold kanzashi on her head. _There's nothing wrong with it_, Shizuka decides. Her hair isn't tangled or stringy or riddled with split ends. She takes great care to keep it neat and above all things clean.

Her skin is fair and clear. Shizuka has no freckles, no acne or acne scars (the former would be rather embarrassing considering she's hardly an adolescent anymore), no pockmarks, no rosiness, no moles apart from a small one near her hairline, barely visible. Her nose is small and straight, her cheekbones high and even, her lips full, the upper lip forming a distinct Cupid's bow. Shizuka's high brow is smooth and unlined, and her eyes are light hazel, evenly shaded. There's nothing wrong with her face, Shizuka's sure, and she doesn't think there's anything about the rest of her body that could be considered irregular or immediately unattractive.

Maybe it's not her body, or her looks. But something, something about her has led Kinzo to judge his wife beneath associating with.

Finally tearing her eyes away from the mirror, Shizuka stares down at the brush sitting, abandoned, in her lap. _I can't just ask him what's wrong, what it is I'm doing wrong. For a wife of the head of a noble family, such behavior is childish and unacceptable. But…_

_But there must be something wrong, something I could fix if I just knew what it was that was reproachable about my conduct. If I knew what it was about me that made my company so abhorrent that he either actively avoids me or ignores me when he can't avoid being near me, then I could fix it. Maybe then, he'd enjoy being around me more than he does._

Shizuka sighs in the silence. She knows she could pour out her insecurities all day, for no one would miss her, but that however appealing that may seem, she knows she can't spend all day in her bedchamber, sulking. She reaches for the gold kanzashi, adorned only with a green tama, lying out on the surface of the vanity.

There is nothing for her to do but go on the way she has. Maybe, sometime in the future, Kinzo will finally grow impatient of solving his dissatisfaction with her via avoidance, and tell her in what way he finds her lacking. _Shizuka hopes for this, when she sees his face crack and break into emotion, even if the only emotion there is irritation with her. Anything to see that positively inhuman stoicism break, and reveal a human nature within. _Or maybe, in silence, without ever bringing to light the faults of his wife, Kinzo will simply choose to forgive her for it, and maybe, just maybe, he'll treat her a little more warmly.

It seems like such a faint and vague thing, though.

"_Oh my," Shizuka breathes, her eyes drinking in the sight of so many books packed tightly on the shelves, the sunlight gleaming off their cracked bindings. "So many books." Her voice practically drips awe._

_Though she doesn't see it (and what a pity that her back is turned to him, because the sight would make her heart melt), when he hears his wife comment in such a way on the library he's made for himself over the past few years, his eyes light up. For a few moments, he looks years younger than the heavy, world-weary expression he constantly wears would suggest. If anything, he's almost smiling. "You like to read, do you?" he asks, so quietly that Shizuka certainly can't guess at the emotions hinging on the words._

_A bright smile clasps her lips as she turns back towards him and nods. "Yes, very much."_

"_Have you ever read _The Divine Comedy_?"_

_Shizuka stops, and frowns. The words Kinzo spoke aren't in Japanese. They're unfamiliar to her ears—if anything, they sound clumsy and ill-conceived. What sort of language sounds like that?_

_She shakes her head, staring down at the floor. "Ah, no?"_

_That faint, almost-smile playing around his lips wavers. "How about _The Prince_, or _Utopia?"

_Shizuka can honestly say that she's received a good education. She can read and write and do algebra. She can tell you the names of all the emperors and has read _The Tale of Genji _more times than she can even remember. But in the face of all these foreign titles, she's starting to feel more ignorant than learned. An unwelcome tint of red creeps into her cheeks._

"_No, I'm sorry, Kinzo-san. The only language I know is Japanese."_

"_Oh," he says stiffly, and turns away._

_She thinks she might have lost something in that moment._

* * *

Notes:

Kanzashi—a traditional Japanese hair ornament. There are many different types of kanzashi. A tama kanzashi, the type I've given as what Shizuka wears in her hair, is a simple prong adorned only with a ball, or tama, on the end. You would wear a kanzashi with a red tama from October to May, and a kanzashi with a green tama from June to September. If you go to the Wikipedia article on kanzashi, it'll give you loads of information.


	3. Waiting in the Dark

_Waiting in the Dark_

* * *

Though Kinzo might find Shizuka lacking in other areas, at least neither he nor anyone else can say that she's barren. Barely a year after their wedding, Shizuka finds herself in a hospital bed, holding her first child close to her chest, tired, exhausted, feeling like she's ready to die of fatigue at any moment, but smiling.

'Krauss.' Kinzo wants to call him Krauss. Apparently his disdain for the Japanese culture runs so deep that he can't even stand to call his firstborn by a Japanese name, so he choose a European name instead. Shizuka can't really bring herself to care about her son's name, though, even if the syllables only roll off her tongue with difficulty. Whatever her son's name is, she's happy just to have him.

When Krauss is born, Shizuka finds herself filled with a new sense of hope. She's fulfilled her role as the wife of an aristocrat who must keep his eye towards perpetuating the family line. She's given birth to a child, and a boy at that, a boy who will be able to carry on the Ushiromiya name. This is a victory for her. Perhaps, now that she has done the one thing, by far the most important thing required of aristocrats' wives, Kinzo will perhaps warm up to her a little bit. He'll see that, whatever else he thinks she's not doing right, she has at least fulfilled the role of "mother of the successor to the headship."

She hopes.

Krauss is a baby with watery blue eyes, head crowned with dark blonde fuzz. He speaks his first word ("Mama!") at twelve months and takes his first unaided step at thirteen. He sits, the king of the nursery, about his toys and blankets and the nursemaid employed to care for him. Little prince, he lords over his domain.

Shizuka can't be with him as often as she would like. It's just not good form for a mother to coddle her son, especially not her oldest son, who will have to learn the hard lessons of being head of the household, and managing the affairs of his great family. She has her own responsibilities—overseeing the servants and making sure their work is done correctly and thoroughly, ensuring that the cook has the meals prepared and delivered on time, and so on. She goes about, wincing against the bodice that is far too tight against her still-swollen, milk-heavy breasts, and does all she can to ensure that the domestic affairs are being executed with all diligence.

She does, though, attempt to persuade Kinzo to get to know his son.

_Shizuka smiles and stacks blocks with Krauss when, suddenly, she hears footsteps out in the hall._

_Normally, this wouldn't be something that would get her attention. Between the elders of the clan and the veritable army of servants, this great mansion in Odawara, there are many people here during the daylight hours. But there's a difference._

_The elders all dress in traditional garb. They all wear geta and the sound geta make when fitting a hardwood floor is decidedly different from that of Western shoes. The servants all wear thick shoes that make a dull thud. These shoes, however, leave a clear, crisp 'clip' in the air behind them._

_Shizuka knows only one person here who wears shoes like that._

"_Kinzo-san!" Upon recognizing that the footsteps in the hall belong to her husband, Shizuka leaps to her feet. Krauss frowns at her as she goes, as he often will in future years when his mother forsakes his company for the company of the one she calls "husband."_

_Skirts rustling in the thick air, Shizuka goes out into the hall after her husband. Kinzo is heading in the direction of the library, presumably to while away the afternoon now that he's no longer needed today—he does so in peace, now that it's known that the library is one filled with books his wife can not read. He does tend to take refuge in the library often._

"_Kinzo-san!" Shizuka calls out again._

_This time, Kinzo can't pretend that he didn't hear her. He turns, with an expression of weariness on his face that Shizuka doesn't notice. "What is it?"_

_Remembering herself, Shizuka's eyes drop to the floor, hands splayed demurely across the front of her skirt. "Krauss is awake. Do you wish to see him?" she asks quietly._

"_No."_

_Refusing to be deterred by this, Shizuka goes on. "The nurse tells me he's been very well-behaved today. I'm sure he would enjoy your company."_

"_No."_

_This time, the finality in Kinzo's voice can't be ignored. He turns and continues down the hall towards the library, finally slamming the thick, oaken doors to that place behind him._

Kinzo wants little to do with his firstborn son. He delves all the more deeply into the world of his books and the sake Shizuka pretends she can't see him drinking. He is preoccupied with his reading and his duties as the head of the Ushiromiya.

Perhaps it's because Krauss is just an infant. Yes, that must be it. Shizuka's mother had warned her that men are often not interested in their sons until they're old enough to speak to each other, until their sons are old enough to start to be trained to become the next head of the household. _"You wait until your first son is old enough to understand concepts like "duty" and "honor", and then, I assure you, then your husband will take an interest in him."_

So Shizuka can still hope. She can still hope for a happy life with an attentive husband, even if there's been nothing so far to support those hopes. Surely, the prospect of being a father will melt the frost around his heart. Surely, Kinzo's apathy will vanish at the reality of having a child, and hopefully more to come. He'll find the same love in his heart for his child—children—as she has. She's sure of it.

-0-0-0-

When Eva is born, Shizuka is less certain.

There's no denying that the birth of a girl is something of a disappointment, though less of a disappointment than it would have been had Krauss not been born first. A second son would have simply bolstered the succession, but the birth of a girl means that there's no one to fall back on if—Heaven forbid—something was to happen to Krauss before he was of the age to have a son of his own.

If Kinzo takes no interest in Krauss, he barely seems to notice that Eva exists. _A little girl with nearly white blonde hair and an unusually determined expression for her age, will toddle up to her father with the intent of getting his attention. However, all of her attempts come to naught, and he ignores her up until the point when her insistence on being noticed becomes intolerable and he snaps for someone to take the child away. _Eva, far more than Krauss, seems intent on getting her father's attention, to have his eyes on her, but far more than even Krauss, Kinzo is just as intent on not giving her his time.

"…_But she is so bright, so eager to know you," Shizuka puts forward tentatively._

_Never looking up from his novel, Kinzo snorts. He reclines in an armchair in the library, afternoon sunlight falling on his face in golden slants, while his wife stands, stiff and straight, before him._

"_What use have I with a 'bright' daughter? What use has any man with a daughter who is intelligent? Eva's 'intelligence' will frighten away men who could bring wealth and prestige to our family. Better that she be beautiful. Better that she know how to comport herself as a lady. Better that she not _speak unless spoken to_," he says pointedly, and Shizuka knows she's no longer welcome here, if she ever was at all._

The words sting. Not only the dismissal of Eva, but the badly hidden—was he even trying to hide it at all?—jab against her. Shizuka had hung her head that day and left without another word.

But he's right.

Eva can't be a tomboy, not as a wealthy aristocrat; better that she practice ikebana and tea ceremonies than climb in trees. She can't be a girl who flaunts her intelligence. Oh, it's alright for her to be _smart_, maybe even required, just so long as she doesn't let others _know _that she's smart. A woman who flaunts her intelligence is a hussy; she has little hope of marrying well.

So Shizuka tries not to encourage it. She tries not to encourage Eva's shining enthusiasm for school. What does it matter if she's brilliant? Her husband isn't going to care; brilliance won't make Eva any better a wife or mother than she would have been without it.

And still, she can do nothing.

Everything Krauss did as a baby, Eva does earlier. Be it crawl, or speak, or take her first step, or speak in full sentences, Eva does a week, a month, a year earlier than her brother. She learns to read and write more quickly than Krauss does, outshining him with a huge, unladylike grin, and when the time comes, the little girl who's hair is already darkening to red does better at school than her brother, far better. Krauss simply can't keep up with her.

No matter how hard Shizuka tries to mould Eva into the image of a perfect little lady, the girl bucks her every try. Eva changes out of her frilly, elaborate dresses into slacks and skirts that show a scandalous amount of leg (Up to the knee in some of them). Instead of staying inside and learning the arts of womanhood, Eva insists on playing outside, even gathering an expanse of freckles across her face, much to her mother's horror. She scrapes her knees, she gets grass stains and dirt under her fingernails.

From the moment they are old enough to understand their supposed places in the world, Krauss and Eva fight constantly. They bicker, they argue, they quarrel. They fight about everything under the sun, from who gets the biggest portion of cake to who last saw the favorite toy that's gone missing. They scream and shout, pinch, kick, hit. When it comes to physical force, Krauss wins every time, but if it comes down to a war of words, Eva usually finds herself the victor.

Unless Krauss draws a certain card.

"_You're just a girl,_" _he says, teeth bared in a mirthless, predatory grin that belies his seven years._ _"It doesn't matter, no matter what you do. You'll never be as good as me. You'll never be the head. You'll never be as good, never as smart. After all, you're _just _a girl. All you'll ever be good for is having lots and lots of kids. So why don't you just go ahead and crawl into a kitchen and cook me some lunch, huh?"_

_Eva's eyes will fill with hot, angry tears, always coming close, but never quite reaching the point of overflowing and spilling down her cheeks. Even at the tender age of five, she has far too much pride to be caught weeping in front of her despised elder brother. "You're nothing!" she shrieks hoarsely. "You're too stupid to make grades as good as mine! I'll beat you! I'll show Father that I'm better than you! And then _I'll _be the next head!"_

_Krauss laughs unkindly. "He just wants grandkids out of you. You'll never be the head. You're just a girl."_

Eva can not be contained. Eva can not be controlled. Eva is angry at everyone and everything, wounded somewhere deep inside and expressing it with her anger, with her indomitable drive to succeed, with her absolute failure to conform to the standards of proper womanhood.

When Eva makes herself especially intractable, Kinzo will occasionally throw an exasperated glance his wife's way. _"Control your daughter," _he snaps, annoyed at having been distracted from his reading.

_She's your daughter too_, Shizuka has to force herself not to retort.

He doesn't think of Eva as his daughter unless forced to. He doesn't think of either Krauss nor Eva as his children unless the matter is put in a place where he can't ignore it. She's beginning to realize that, and Shizuka wonders if he has ever seen them as anything but strangers who happen to live in the same house as him.

She wonders just where she's willing to draw the line between fantasy and reality.

-0-0-0-

By the time Rudolf is born, Shizuka finds that she is unable to hope anymore.

She can smell the sake on his breath, the night Rudolf is conceived. There's the stench of sake, and rough, grabbing hands, so clumsy that she can barely believe they're Kinzo's. She'd like to push him off, thinks she probably could, but she knows better; it's not a wife's place to deny her husband what he wants.

But she still hates the feel of her skin, come the next pale morning. (_If he notices how distressed she is, he doesn't seem to care._)

By the time of Rudolf's birth, Shizuka has been married to Kinzo for six years. In these six years, his attitude towards her and their children has never changed. He ignores them if at all necessary, and when he is finally forced to acknowledge that, yes, the woman and the children in the room are his wife and his children, he does so with an irritated glance and the air of "_Why was I forced to be the father of these children?"_

He doesn't care.

He doesn't care when Krauss starts to learn all the fine rules and requirements of being the head of the Ushiromiya family.

He doesn't care when Eva excels at school, all to impress him.

He doesn't care when Rudolf sneaks out of the house to play with socially-unacceptable children, or when he makes wild promises to girls he can't keep.

In short, to Ushiromiya Kinzo, his family are nothing more than unwelcome strangers intruding upon his solitary world.

Rudolf, at least, seems to understand that if he wants attention, he's going to have to find it elsewhere. Maybe that's why he never seems to care about his schoolwork nearly as much as Krauss or Eva. Maybe that's why he spins such tall tales for the girls at his school. Maybe that's why he insists on roaming away from the mansion in Odawara to find a poorer neighborhood where the children don't know his name, where he can play with them without them bowing and scraping or mocking him for being a "rich boy."

If only Shizuka had that sort of freedom.

She finds herself sitting by the mirror again, one day in winter. Krauss and Eva are home from school, but Rudolf's run off again, and no one can find him. She'd search, but the ringing intonations of "_It's not proper for the wife of the Ushiromiya to be roaming the streets with her hair strewn about her shoulders, shouting herself hoarse to find her son. A woman who acts like that is a madwoman. A woman who acts like that is a shame to her family."_

Though she can't see them, Shizuka feels as though she wears chains about her ankles, dragging along behind her wherever she walks. She's been tethered to this house, tethered to duty, to family pride, to a man who doesn't love her nor even want to know her. Her world is just a cage. A dark, airless room, where she can do naught but suffocate.

_I prayed, and hoped, and begged God that it would turn out alright. I had so dreamed that, though we were brought together by men who cared nothing for us, that we would grow to, if not love each other, than at least care for each other._

_Kinzo-san… _She breathes sharply, clutching at the bodice of her dress; why is it so much tighter than normal, all of a sudden? _Kinzo-san, I think, would rather I didn't exist. He would rather I and our children just disappear. Why? Why does he think this way? What stops him from loving his children, from caring about me? Why did he choose to just look upon us as unwelcome distractions?_

_Really, what about us—what about me—is it that he finds so loathsome?_

A hard, hot knot rises in Shizuka's throat and her hand flies to her mouth.

She supposes…

She supposes that, though she claims something different, she had wanted Kinzo to love her. She had wanted him to value her, his wife, as the mother of his children, as someone he trusted and cared about. She'd wanted so much—and yet so little—from him.

_Does he hate me? Or does he simply not care? Which is worse?_

Shizuka swallows back tears. _I must never weep. I am the wife of the Ushiromiya head, even if he… even if he does not value me as such. I will continue on as I have. _She swallows her tears, but only with difficulty. _It is all I can do._

She'd never known how brutal and empty a life could be when duty was the only thing she had to her name.

* * *

Yes, I know I haven't got Rosa in here. I'm going to address Rosa and the "interesting" relationship she seems to have had with her mother at a later date. Since there's such a huge age gap between Rosa and the rest of her siblings, including her here just didn't seem right.


	4. Slipping Under the Surface

_Slipping Under the Surface_

* * *

The months slip away. They may be years instead; Shizuka doesn't know. She knows that her children keep getting taller, needing new clothes seemingly every time she turns around. She knows that there is a war going on, somewhere outside; it all seems so far removed from Odawara, the reports of battle and death. She knows that Kinzo grows colder, quieter, more remote with each passing season. She knows that he cares for himself and his own life less and less with each turn of the moon.

"Kinzo-san… I'm concerned. You haven't eaten in days." The smell of stale absinthe, a foreign brew Shizuka has long since learned to recognize, also lingers in the air.

"I've had no need for food," Kinzo will say every time.

Or it could go…

"I… I'm worried. This—" she motions towards the empty bottle on the desk and the glass tipped over beside it, a small puddle of clear liquid pasting a paper to the surface of the desk, but Kinzo cuts her off.

"It's no concern of yours," he will say brusquely.

Or perhaps…

"Please, you haven't left the library in three days. Won't you—"

"No."

There's always something. If it's not one thing, it's another—occasionally all three at the same time.

There's a war going on, somewhere outside. The only evidence that can be seen of that in Odawara is the sudden depopulation of young men who weren't able to avoid being enlisted. Through the influence of the elders, Kinzo was released from the duty of enlistment, but Shizuka starts to wonder if maybe that was what he'd wanted after all, to be able to enlist, and go off to war.

It's just a small thing that makes her think that he'd been looking forward to enlisting. It's just that, when Kinzo had been informed that his services in the army were no longer required, Shizuka had caught, for just a fleeting moment, a look of black displeasure sweep over Kinzo's face. She's sure she was the only one who saw it—to see the way Kinzo's face twisted was so frightening that she's sure that if the elders had seen it, they would have backed up from him, or at least flinched. The only reason she didn't do so was because she knew she wasn't the one that anger was being directed at. _I don't think I'd ever seen such strong emotion on his face before._

If so, if Kinzo really had intended on enlisting, she doesn't think Kinzo would join the army out of any sense of patriotism. His love of far-off lands far outweighs his love of Japan; she's never heard him express any sentiments of patriotism for Japan, though Shizuka concedes, bitterly, that she is not exactly one whom Kinzo seems eager to make a confidante out of. She's not sure that he has _anyone _whom he calls confidant, but if he's considering confiding in someone, she's sure she's at the very bottom of the list of people he'd be willing to confide in.

So, perhaps, he merely wants to join the army in order to die.

This was a thought that Shizuka had rejected at first, simply out of hand. _If he wanted to die I'm sure he would have simply committed suicide by now. He certainly doesn't… _Shizuka grits her teeth and doesn't wince, as she used to, when she feels her fingernails digging into her palms; the little telltale red marks are often visible on her skin these days. _He certainly doesn't care enough for his children, or for me, to take us into consideration if he truly intended on ending his own life. If he had any intention of committing suicide, he would be dead by now. Kinzo-san would not use patriotism as a cloak._

However, the more she examines what she knows of Kinzo, the more it seems to become likely that he has exactly as little regard for his life as do most young men who volunteer to be sent to the front lines.

He's always been apathetic, towards his duty, towards his wife, his children, and everything else. The only thing Kinzo seems really to care about is his books. He becomes agitated when someone touches them without his permission, demanding that they put the book back where they found it and leave the library immediately, as both Krauss and Eva (who, unlike their mother, _can _read English) have discovered to their cost.

And lately…

And lately, he's been taking less and less care of himself.

Shizuka can't claim to know Kinzo deeply. Oh yes, she knows his daily habits, where he goes and at what times, but she doesn't know his goals, his dreams, his loves—if he even has any. However, she's sat near him at the dinner table to know that, while he's never had a great deal of enthusiasm for eating, there was at least a time when he seemed to have a decent appetite.

There was once a time when Kinzo would eat every bit of food on his plate, even if he never seemed to particularly enjoy it. He would eat his meals without complaint, without ever giving any sign that he was displeased with it—of course, he never gave any sign that he was _pleased _with it either. He wouldn't skip meals, not even if he was engrossed in a particularly thrilling book.

Nowadays, though, it's different. Kinzo's more likely to pick at his food with his fork than he is to eat it, with a dissatisfied look on his face rather reminiscent of Rudolf when he asked for yakitori but ended up having to make do with pot roast instead. There are days when he simply will not eat at all, and send his meal back untouched, leaving the cooks scrambling, frantic to discover what went wrong with such a seemingly perfect dish. They, at least, don't seem to realize that the problem lies not in the food but in Kinzo himself.

If it was every once in a while that he did this, Shizuka supposes that she likely wouldn't have noticed. She would have assumed that he wasn't hungry, that he wasn't feeling well, that he didn't like the look of the food, or that he'd simply been snacking between meals—he does so love areca nuts. After all, everyone skips a meal sometimes, for any number of reasons. But it's often enough that he's started to lose weight—Shizuka can see the way his waistcoat and his shirt hang off of his shoulders now, too loose where once they fit perfectly.

And it's not just his shifting eating habits that give Shizuka cause for concern.

Kinzo, for all appearances, did seem to be a man concerned with looking well when she first met him. He was always sure to be neatly dressed, in well-fitting, tailored clothes possessing neither stains, tears, nor wrinkles; if clothes didn't meet his approval, he would simply refuse to wear them until they did. Shoes had to be shined, and the sundry jewelry polished until it gleamed. Kinzo was also always sure to be clean-shaven, every day, and went to the barber's shop every month to have his hair cut. As far as his appearance went, he was nothing short of fastidious.

She'd first started to notice it the third time Shizuka ventured into the library, a place fast becoming Kinzo's "private domain" (God knows no one besides him goes in there anymore unless they absolutely have to), but now, it's impossible to ignore. She can see the crumpled shirt collar, the purplish-red wine stain on his sleeve that looks alarmingly like blood at first glance, the stubble on his chin. She can smell the accumulated sweat of several days of having gone without bathing—it's all she _can _smell, at night when he's lying in bed next to her, to the point that Shizuka finds herself sleeping on the very edge of the bed in an attempt to escape that sickly sweet aroma of sweat and unwashed hair.

He has become, dare she say it, slovenly.

And there's the drinking.

Oh yes, there's the drinking.

Shizuka supposes she should count her blessings when she remembers, at the very least, that Kinzo is not a _violent _drunk. He's certainly not a pleasant drunk—brooding and scowling, and prone towards shouting if you bother him for too long—but he doesn't throw things or throw his fists.

What he does instead is snap and shout, and take whatever pent-up rage the drink has produced in him out on whoever is unfortunate enough to be nearby at the time. However, these fits are unpredictable. When drinking long and heavily from his cup, or the bottle perched on the desk, he's just as likely to terrify the maid who's come in to dust the shelves, shout at her until it's all she can do to run out of the room, as he is to do nothing at all, and behave as though completely alone.

It's really not proper behavior for the head of the Ushiromiya family, all of this—the refusal to eat, the refusal to stay sober, or the refusal to even take basic care of his body. What concerns Shizuka more, however, is the danger Kinzo does to his own health.

She can't make him eat. She can't make him bathe or shave or take good enough care of his clothes so as not to find them covered in stains and creases. However, she can make some effort to separate Kinzo from his alcohol.

Or, more accurately, Shizuka _had thought _she could get Kinzo away from his drowning spirits.

The two maids slip away down the hall as Shizuka steps inside the room they just finished cleaning. Seeing that the bed linens have been replaced properly, that there are no wrinkles anywhere on the sheets, Shizuka start to inspect the room to be sure that it's been dusted properly and that nothing has been stolen. As she does this, she finds herself winding around the same path repeatedly, long after her inspection is done. Eventually, Shizuka collapses into an armchair by the window, and stares out on the city heavily.

When it became clear that simply pointing out that his drinking habits worried her and that pleading with him wasn't going to be enough to make Kinzo cut back on his drinking (oh, why did she ever think that it would?), Shizuka had started to search out other avenues of keeping him and the bottle apart.

So when she'd petitioned the servants to help her dispose of every ounce of liquor on the Ushiromiya property, Shizuka had been reasonably confident that that would solve the problem—at least until it occurred to Kinzo that he could simply go out and buy _more _liquor, but she would have dealt with that when it happened. After all, the servants answered to her; she'd thought they would help her.

But no.

"_I'm sorry, Madam. The master gave us strict orders not to touch his wine."_

Well, that had been a nasty reality check.

The air seems remarkably stifling as Shizuka stares out the window. It's afternoon; Krauss and Eva should be home from school any minute now; she might see them walking up the street if she keeps staring out of this particular window. But she's not really thinking about that.

It had been… It had been jarring, to say the least, to have that reminder of just how powerless she really was here, without the goodwill of her husband. _I suppose there's something to be said for remembering not to overreach yourself, _Shizuka muses bitterly. _At least that way you don't get burnt by your own presumption in the process._

The servants answer to Kinzo before her; if they have an order from him that contradicts something she asks them to do, they can openly defy her and she can't do a thing about it. It's only because of her marriage to Kinzo that they have any obligation to listen to her at all. A wife's position really is quite dangerously precarious, even when her relationship with her husband is a loving one, but Shizuka's is more precarious still, because Kinzo has always been apathetic (at best) towards her. The servants, she supposes, are probably just waiting for the day when he makes it clear that he has no more use for her than he does the dirt that finds itself under his feet when he goes outside. Waiting for the day when they are no longer obliged to pay her attention.

They all are.

So back to the fruitless pleading, the wheedling, the coaxing that Kinzo ignores and brushes off, and Shizuka grows more convinced of her powerlessness with each abortive try.

But she doesn't want him to die.

Shizuka winces at the thought of Kinzo dying, feels cold at that thought, just as she always does, though the room is warm and there exists no hint of a draught.

He does not love her. He doesn't even seem much to like her. This is not to say, though, that Shizuka likes the thought of him dying—far from it.

_He seems to think his life is worthless—he must, if he takes so poor care of himself, and if he wanted to enlist in the army to fight a war that has already claimed so many lives. But _why _does he think that his life is worthless? _Why _should he think that? He has three children. Has he forgotten his responsibility to them? Did he ever remember that he _had _a responsibility to them? Or did he just assume that since he wanted to die, God would take care of these things for him and he'd never have to take responsibility for anything?_

Of all the people Shizuka has met, she can not say that she has ever known someone quite so apathetic to living as Kinzo. That is a tragedy in itself—nothing worse than the tragedy of the life that is never appreciated as much as it should be. But he has children, children who are too young to properly fend for themselves. Does he not remember them? Does the presence of children named Krauss, Eva and Rudolf, children of his own blood, escape him whenever he stares out the window and wishes he was on the front lines?

Shizuka shudders to think of what would happen to her and the children if Kinzo was to die. Krauss, of course, would succeed the headship, but the reality of the situation is that he is a boy of nine years, hopefully unqualified to lead a family.

And what sort of family is it? The elders has successfully made off with the lion's share of the Ushiromiya wealth; for all that they _appear _grand, financial concerns plague this great house. If Kinzo was to die before making some sort of effort, successfully, to restore the Ushiromiya wealth, he would leave a widow and three children who had little money to their names.

The elders would not support them; their embezzlement tells Shizuka all she needs to know of what they would do if Kinzo was to die suddenly. In such a situation, Shizuka can only assume that she would be forced to throw herself on the mercy of the family she left to marry Kinzo—and given that it's been ten years since she last laid eyes on any of them, she's not even sure if she and the children would be welcome.

So she has plenty of reason to prefer Kinzo alive to dead, even if he doesn't seem to feel the same way.

But even when the motive of needing a place where she and her children can be safe and secure is stripped away, Shizuka is still bothered by the thought of being a widow.

The sunlight hits her face, and Shizuka forces herself to rise from her chair. She needs to inspect the rest of the rooms, and go down to see if Krauss and Eva are home from school yet. She has duties here that still need to be attended to; even with her disquiet, she must not forget that.

And even past the obligation of duty, Shizuka finds that she doesn't want Kinzo to die.

* * *

In Kinzo's "confession" in Episode 7, he kept going on and on about how "my life was worthless before I met Bice. There was nothing that made it worth living." I'm willing to admit that Kinzo was probably clinically depressed in the time period after he became the Ushiromiya head and before he met Bice; his behavior had the earmarks of depression. I'm also willing to admit that Shizuka doesn't recognize depression when she sees it, and since there's a cultural stigma against depression in Japan (as there is pretty much everywhere, to be honest), she wouldn't see it too positively even if she did recognize it. What I also think, though, that the whole "my life was worthless before I met Bice" thing was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Kinzo keeps going on about how his life was horrible and empty before he met Bice, but there's no evidence that he tried to do anything to make it less horrible and empty.


	5. How to Break a Mask

_How to Break a Mask_

* * *

"_You're… You're what?" Shizuka asks hoarsely, gaping at him._

_The afternoon sunlight ripples through the mullioned windows, the wavy lines hitting Kinzo's face. "I'm enlisting," he repeats himself simply._

"_But—"_

"_I've made my decision. I will not discuss it any further."_

-0-0-0-

She watches him leave, dressed in the simple uniform of a soldier, and not once does Kinzo ever turn back and look at her, or their children. He walks down the road, head held high and step swift, and he does not speak, nor does he look back.

Just like he had said he wouldn't.

Krauss, Eva and Rudolf all stand at her side, and where Shizuka droops the further he goes, they seem to brighten. Their shoulders straighten and some light returns to their dull, wary eyes, as though their father was an evil spirit who siphoned away all their energy when he was near them, and takes his malign influence with him as he goes. And maybe he was; a room certainly seemed to grow gloomy, darker, and oppressively quiet whenever Kinzo was in it.

But even if Kinzo never brought happiness to the house in which he lived, Shizuka knows better than her children that if Kinzo is leaving to go off to fight a desperate war, it's not a good thing.

"We should go back inside," she says to them, eyes skimming over all of their heads, once Kinzo has finally disappeared from sight. The wind catches in her hair and her heart feels as though some cruel hand has reached inside to hold it tight, keeping it from beating, but her voice is level, emotionless. "It's cold out here. Come along, children."

-0-0-0-

He has left the house empty and smaller than what it was when he still lived there, even if Kinzo's presence only served to inject something akin to a funereal pall into the atmosphere. The master of the house is gone—has been for two weeks. He leaves evidence of his presence in the clothes hanging up in the wardrobe, in empty wine bottles stashed in hidden corners in the library, in the now-barren rose bushes that sigh when strong winds whistle through their branches.

Shizuka had not thought the house would seem so different with Kinzo gone. He had been a ghost in his own home, seeming more akin to an apparition floating down the halls than the master of the house, but still, somehow, all here feels… _diminished _without Kinzo. He has come to be such a fixture that his absence is bizarre.

Still, the servants no longer lower their voices when they talk, and the children play in the halls without fear of being harshly scolded by their father.

The elders have fled, escaping the cities and the specter of war for places where they think they will be safe. The servants may speak more openly now, but they still cup their hands around their mouths when they think their mistress might be near. The children do not even try to hide their relief that their father has gone to a place where he can't lambaste them for bad behavior or poor grades or for speaking too loudly when he's hung-over.

Shizuka, however, does not flee. Nor does she gossip. Nor does she feel any emotion resembling relief. All she can do is sit, and wait, and worry.

Kinzo must have been looking for a way to die after all, because when he first saw an opening to join the army, he jumped on it. All the propaganda in the world can not hide the fact that the war is going badly for Japan, that defeat is inevitable, and that when defeat comes, the country will suffer. Shizuka doesn't even allow Krauss, Eva or Rudolf to play outside the Ushiromiya grounds anymore, for fear of Allied bombs; she's heard reports of fire bombings in Tokyo and doesn't like to think of what would happen to the children if they weren't able to get back in the house and down into the cellars in time.

As it is, the life of a soldier is currently even more dangerous than that of a civilian. Kinzo must know that, and yet he chose to join the army once it became clear that the elders no longer had any vested interest in keeping him alive. He must know that his chances of dying are very good indeed (a safe bet for all gamblers), and yet he's gone off to serve a country he has little fondness for. Given that Kinzo has never possessed any more inclination towards homicidal urges than he has towards patriotism and likely does not have any sort of inner bloodlust he's looking to sate by killing enemy soldiers, it's likely that he is looking for a worthy death.

Though Kinzo may wish for death and Shizuka knows that it is her place as a wife to wish her husband well in all his endeavors, she prays that death will not find him.

_It does not matter what Kinzo-san wants, if what he wishes for is death. He is the head of the Ushiromiya family, which flounders in debt and whose current heir is a young boy. It is his duty to stay alive until such time as Krauss is old enough and experienced enough to take over the headship. It is his duty to stay alive long enough to recoup our losses, to make up the wealth that was stolen away._

_He is the father of three children. If he has any care in his heart for them, any at all, he ought to count them as a reason to stay alive. He ought to want to see them grow up, and have children of their own._

_He is my husband. I—_

Shizuka squeezes her eyes shut and runs her hand over the surface of the book held in her lap. "Don't…" she whispers. "Don't."

Shizuka distracts herself with the history of the book she holds, grateful to have something, anything, to divert her from thoughts of Kinzo out in some far field, maybe facing death at that very moment.

Eventually, she had grown impatient with the fact that the only books available were so jealously guarded by her husband, and that they weren't even in a language she could read. True, the children have books, books written in Japanese, but they are children's books, written for children, not adults.

Even Eva, whose tastes in literature slant more mature than her brothers', still reads books too juvenile for her mother to truly enjoy them. What's more, she's nearly as jealous a warden of books as her father; no one is allowed to remove books from Eva's collection without her permission, and God help you if you haven't returned a borrowed book by the time you said you would, or if you return it damaged. Rudolf found that out, to his dismay (and great physical pain), when he did both, returning a book a week late and with the front cover barely clinging to the spine. Eva's response was swift and brutal; Rudolf found himself down two baby teeth after his mouth's encounter with his sister's fist. Eva was confined to her room (only allowed out for sanitary reasons and school) for a week, and Rudolf will likely never abuse his sister's belongings again.

One day Shizuka came into a bit of spending money, and took Krauss and Eva (Rudolf did not want to go, and was far more content with his jacks than with a book, thank you very much) to the local bookstore. They bought a couple of books for themselves, and with the rest of the money, Shizuka did the same. She currently has about a dozen books she calls her own, and has read them all at least twice.

It's been… It's been enjoyable, having books she can actually read. Now there's something to occupy her day other than oversee the servants and wander about the grounds below. The books have become an oasis in an otherwise gray life, but…

But, all things considered, Shizuka finds that this does nothing to take her mind off of her endangered husband. Nothing at all.

_I can not panic_, she tells herself, depositing her book on the nearest table and going to stand by the window. Rudolf is down outside, playing tag with a child who—for once—is actually socially acceptable for him to be associating with. _I can not lose my composure and weep like one of the working women down in the mills. In Kinzo-san's absence I am the head of the house; I lead the servants and all those who depend upon the Ushiromiya group. I must maintain all strength. I can not falter._

Smoothing down her skirts, Shizuka leaves the room. She's dawdled too long here; she has work to do.

-0-0-0-

It's during one of those freak thunderstorms that rolls suddenly off from the sea that Shizuka starts to crack, just a little bit.

The lights have gone out and, in the face of the ferocious winds and the abiding fear of the Allies attacking under the cover of foul weather and darkness, she's gathered the children on the ground floor, the better to flee to the cellar if they need to.

None of them are particularly impressed with their mother's worrying. Rudolf is rubbing at his eyes and yawning, trying as hard as he can to fall asleep in an armchair, despite all injunctions not to. Eva fiddles with the hem of her long, white nightgown, a scowl marring her otherwise pretty features. Krauss alone speaks.

"It's just a storm. Airplanes can't fly in these conditions, let alone well enough to drop bombs over the city. I don't see why we shouldn't just go back to bed."

Shizuka snaps at him to be quiet, but in that moment he looks so like his father at his most irritable—out of all the children, Krauss resembles his father the most—that it gives her pause, and leaves her to sit in a chair and stare out at the wild, stormy night, wondering.

Kinzo and his masks. They gave her such cause for frustration, such cause for grief.

She remembers how it was—he would be almost totally apathetic, only allowing irritation or a faint, vague contentment to seep through, except when he would fly into a sudden rage, demanding to be left alone and snarling at anyone who defied those orders. Then, that rage would vanish like dew off a leaf on a hot summer's day, and he would settle back to his cold, distant apathy, retreating behind the shield provided by his books and his position of power, nominal or not, over all those who crossed his path.

They have been married for more than ten years now, and in all that time, Kinzo never warmed toward her. He never dropped the mask of anger, the mask of apathy, the mask of distant authority that he did not want, nor the grim, dull malaise of a man who wanted nothing more to die and be released from the "shackles" of his life. He never came to consider her someone worth respect, or confiding in, or seeking comfort from, or trusting. His opinion of his wife, simply, has remained that she is someone to ignore unless paying attention to her is the only option possible.

He never, in all those years of marriage, in having three children and a wife that he should have been willing to confide in, never lost that malaise, never overcame that feeling that he would be better off dead, that his life was so worthless that having a family wasn't enough to tether him to the mortal plane. He always kept those masks, and never once willingly took them down, not to his children, and not to his wife. He was never interested in being a father, never interested in being a husband.

But when Shizuka sees in her mind's eye the image of him wandering into the path of a stray bullet, she can't help but…

_Oh God, I…_

It's funny… It's funny, but it's suddenly gotten so hard to breathe. Her throat feels so hard and hot, like there's a knot rising up her neck.

"Mother?"

Krauss's scowl vanishes, to be replaced by a look of concern. Apparently Shizuka wasn't able to completely banish the sudden swell from her face. "Mother, is something wrong?" When she doesn't answer, he looks to the window, at the rain being blown by the wind to batter the glass, and misinterprets what he sees. "Mother, it really is just a storm. It'll have blown over by morning."

After a moment longer of abstracted staring, Shizuka turns to her eldest son, a weak smile wavering on her lips. "I know. Why don't you three just get some sleep after all? I'll wake you if I think we need to go to the cellar."

-0-0-0-

She walks into her bedroom one day and finds that everything reminds her of him. The bed hangings, the pale, lacy curtains on the window, the chair by the vanity that has marks on it from where Kinzo would brace his feet when he went to put on his shoes (With, of course, no respect for the fact that he shouldn't even be wearing those sorts of shoes in the house, let alone in the bedroom). Everything, from sheets to the pendulum clock on the wall, reminds her of Kinzo, even when it shouldn't.

Rudolf asked her when he was coming home yesterday. Oh, he didn't do it in a "When's Daddy coming back? I wanna see him." sort of voice. He did it in a "Please don't say 'soon'" sort of voice, the same as Krauss or Eva would have done, if they had ever found reason to ask. They don't miss their father. And to be horribly honest, Kinzo has never given them a reason to miss him. They're too young to really understand that their fortunes hang precariously in the balance, that if Kinzo doesn't come home, they're as good as ruined. They are old enough, however, to recognize the differences between the way their father treats them and the way the fathers of their classmates treat their children. They're old enough to be relieved to see the back of him.

Shizuka finds, though, that with each passing day that Kinzo is gone and she hears nothing from him, her anxiety only grows greater.

She has nightmares about him dying (_Dead in some field, lying spread-eagle on his back, blood spilling from dark holes and his lifeless gray eyes staring up at a pitiless sun)_. No matter how much she tells herself that all will be well, no matter how often she sends prayers up to God, Shizuka still finds the image of Kinzo dead burned on the inside of her eyelids.

Just as often she finds herself having nightmares about what might happen to her and the children if Kinzo dies. She can see it so clearly—them all out on the streets, their fine clothes turned to rags and hunger burrowing in their eyes and their cheeks. Her sons would be thieves, she and her daughter whores, and they would end their days in prison or out on the streets, perhaps stabbed in some dark alley.

_I can't face that. I can't even begin to imagine living that sort of life. To have come so dizzyingly high, and then to hit the ground again so abruptly… I think the fall itself would kill me._

-0-0-0-

A week later, Shizuka finds herself in the roes garden, surrounded by all the rose bushes Kinzo had insisted be planted, the flowers in full bloom for the humid early June.

With each breath she takes as she wanders the path, the air seems to grow closer, thicker, more difficult to breathe. The humidity makes it feel as though there are invisible hands pressing all over her chest and neck. The thick, heady perfume of the roses, cloying and almost sickly, invades her nostrils and sticks to the roof of her mouth. The heat is overwhelming, pressing down on her head and shoulders. Every inch of skin feels as though it will burst into fire with smoke smelling of roses, and—

She finds herself on her knees, her small hands cupping her face as she weeps. She might come up with her skirt encrusted with dirt, she might set the servants to whispering "_she's gone mad; look at her dress, look at her face_", but she doesn't care. Her shoulders are beset by tremors, her stomach upended by the tears trickling down her throat, and she doesn't care if the whole world deems her mad for such a display.

Shizuka isn't even sure why she's crying. She could be crying for her children, for her husband, for her country, for all the men dying, or simply for herself. Maybe she cries for them all, for this mad world that's been set ablaze.

But for now, all she can think about is the roses.

Kinzo had loved the roses—as much as he's capable of loving anything. And now, she has no way of knowing whether he'll ever see them again.

-0-0-0-

She wilts and withers the way delicate spring flowers do under the heat of a pitiless midsummer sun, leaves crumpling, smooth, pink petals shriveling and turning a sickly shade of brown as if to deliberately mock beauty in all its ugly, decaying glory.

Food is as ash in her mouth and makes her stomach roil; at least twice Shizuka has been sick off of a light meal though there was nothing wrong with the food. Sleep pounds her with horrors, so her nights are filled with wakefulness instead, and there is no amount of makeup that can hide the purplish circles beneath her eyes and the way her skin starts to stretch tightly over her cheekbones. She finds herself snapping at the servants over the most minor of mistakes. Her children avoid her, and she sees herself reflected as a ghost in their eyes.

It's like she's assimilated her husband's spirit, and she's drowning in whatever malaise gnawed at the edge of his soul when he was still here. Shizuka wonders for one moment, morbid and grimacing, if she'll feel the urge to jump from a high place or dive beneath the surface of her bathtub and never come back up.

She remembers Kinzo's listless, apathetic face, the way he could barely force any inflection into his voice when he wasn't in a rage. This world is nothing more than a cage—Shizuka knows that, and Kinzo did as well. Maybe that was why he never put passion into anything. Because he knew that it did not matter, that he had no power though he wore fine clothes and the title of "family head." Because he knew that no matter what he did, he would always be powerless, and life would go on the same way it always did. The same food, the same books, the same bad alcohol.

Maybe he'll find death on a battlefield, and he'll then be free, but Shizuka will still be caged even if Kinzo is dead. As terrified as she is of the thought of losing him, she finds she resents him for that. She resents him, because she knows he'll seek his freedom without a second thought, but not think to leave the door open for her to do the same.

Then, once he's gone, the gilded cage will become a cage whose bars are made of hunger and ruin.

She dreads it every day.

-0-0-0-

And it's amazing how one simple thing can make the whole world seem as though a gray veil has been lifted and the sun is shining again.

Shizuka clutches the letter to her chest. It's short and stilted, without a trace of emotion, but it's a sign that he's still alive, that he hasn't been killed on the battlefield, and the paper curls and crumples under the bite of her fingernails.

He'll be home soon, sometime in the coming weeks.

There's a swelling in her chest, and Shizuka finds herself smiling for the first time in what seems an eternity. She'd almost forgotten what it felt like to smile.

-0-0-0-

Kinzo arrives home to a city in ruin. The Allies bombed the city in August; the mansion was damaged in the attack and as a result Shizuka and the children have been forced to take up residence in the guesthouse. Tokyo has been devastated by fire bombing, Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the horrors of the atomic bomb. Japan has signed the papers of surrender and is now under the occupation of the Allies. The ground she stands on now is that of a country in ruin.

But for the moment, Shizuka finds she doesn't care about any of that. She's waiting at the gate for him to come, and she doesn't think she would care if the whole world was burning.

Even if Kinzo cares nothing for her or their children, she's glad to have him back. The future no longer seems quite so bleak with him home, alive, no matter what his attitude towards life or her. At least now the children have some chance of a safe, comfortable future, and Shizuka, Shizuka just wants to see his face.

_Where is he? He was supposed to be here half an hour ago; what's taking so long?_

Then, as if her eyes have alit on some reverse mirage, hazy at a distance but growing more solid with each step closer, she spots him.

There's Kinzo, still in that uniform, with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and the dust of the road smeared on his boots. For one utterly insane moment, Shizuka finds herself nearly overwhelmed by the urge to go running up and hug him and kiss him and all the things she's seen the working class women do when their husbands returned from war.

But no. Shizuka plants her feet on the ground and does not go running when she catches sight of her husband. It's not proper for a woman of her station to engage in such low-class frivolity, not in public, where anyone could see her. All fine and well for one of the working-class women to take leave of their dignity when they see their husbands for the first time in months, or even years, but for her to indulge in such an undignified display would be unacceptable.

She is… very happy to see him, though, enough so that it's all she can do to keep her demure, proper smile from breaking into a grin.

As Kinzo nears, Shizuka finds herself staring. _He… He seems so different._

Kinzo has not sustained any injuries of war, it looks like. He has no scars, he's not lost any fingers or an eye. He doesn't have any new wrinkles or lines around his mouth. He's still clean-shaven, even. But there's something different.

It's his face. He looks lighter, happier, not like that cold, brooding man who would sit in the library for days on end and drink himself to the edge of oblivion. Oh, true, he's not smiling, not bearing even the hint of a smile, but the heaviness is gone from his shoulders. He walks with a certain spring in his step, the leaden quality of his gait gone.

"It's…" Kinzo frowns, and narrows his eyes, face creasing as though the words are painful for him "…it's nice to see you again," he says, with badly disguised reluctance.

He doesn't greet her with any more warmth than she's used to—still the same distant, impatient, "let's get this over with" sort of air about him—but Shizuka still smiles all the same.

"I'm pleased to see you well," she responds, with considerably more warmth.

Oh, even if he's just the same towards her, Shizuka can't help but smile, can't help but feel happier than she has in months.

From his changed demeanor, from the way he smiles at the roses (_from the way he smiles at all_) the appearance of color in his cheeks and light in his eyes, it seems as though Kinzo has found some worth to life after all. Shizuka can only assume that being so close to death must have changed his mind.


	6. Perfect Strangers

_Perfect Strangers _

* * *

After coming back from the war, Kinzo is no longer the apathetic shell of a man he once was. No longer does he retreat into the library or to the bottom of his liquor bottles. He's found a passion in life the same as so many men—and women too, if they're enterprising enough and brave enough to defy the conventions that place them in the home. His passion is not writing or singing or politics, as it might be for other men.

Instead, Kinzo's newfound passion is one for making money.

And he's very good at it too, Shizuka thinks, fingering another new, ornate silk wall hanging for the guesthouse where they're staying—Kinzo seems to have no interest in repairing the manor house that was damaged during the Allies' bombing of Odawara. As far as money-making goes, Kinzo has proven himself to be a magician; Shizuka's even heard whispers of people naming him "Goldsmith" for the way he seems to be able to conjure wealth out of thin air.

She can't deny that she's happy that Kinzo finally seems to be taking responsibility for his family, for the family name, and that he's thrown his full weight into making up for the wealth spirited away by the family elders. He's even started to assert his own authority, telling said elders that they could either follow him or ship out. To a man, the elders pled illness or old age and, bidding the head adieu, withdrew to their homes, which were thankfully very far away. Kinzo frankly didn't seem deeply grieved to watch them go.

Oh yes, she's happy. She's glad that her husband is home, alive, and that she no longer has to worry about him dying and leaving them all destitute. She can afford to properly clothe and feed her children, and Eva's high grades and the wealth of her family have had her name put down for one of the premier girl's boarding schools in Japan, one accepting both junior high and high school girls.

Shizuka's glad that Kinzo is finally taking responsibility for his family and for his own position, that he seems intent on restoring the wealth and grandeur of the Ushiromiya family and providing for the future of his children. She's glad that he's finally living up to his obligations as the family head, as a father.

And of course she's glad that he no longer drifts as a ghost through his own life. To see color in Kinzo's face, light in his eyes and a spring in his step, is possibly the most reassuring thing Shizuka has ever seen. No more, she thinks, does she have to fear the possibility of Kinzo ending his own life and leaving his wife and children to fend for themselves. At the very least, he finally seems to have come to view life as worth living, and thoughts of suicide or at least of drinking himself to death seem to have gone far from his mind.

But.

Upon making sure she's alone, Shizuka shakes her head and stares out the window. Summer has faded away—the petals of the roses that survived the bombing have turned brown, withered, and one by one, floated away, plucked from the stem by an increasingly chill wind. The streets and cobblestone paths are littered with dry, dead leaves. To replace the green-and-blue tones of summer, the whole world seems as though it has been painted in dull brown tones.

_How do I let myself become so easily distracted? _Shizuka wonders, rubbing her forehead wearily and slumping slightly against the window frame. Again, she thanks heaven that she's alone—at least when she's alone, she doesn't have to force straightness into her spine and calm dignity into her face. Alone, she can be as bone-weary and disappointed as she likes, and no one will scold her for it (_"This is unacceptable behavior for the wife of the Ushiromiya head!"_) or gossip about it _("Pitiful, isn't she? Well, that's what she gets."_).

It's just that, thought Kinzo's attitudes towards life may have thawed, his treatment of his children, of her, has not thawed an inch from the depths of winter's chill.

_After all this time, you would think he would have at least reconciled himself to me… _Shizuka remembers how Kinzo can be smiling—actually smiling!—while he walks down a hall, but the moment his eyes fall on her, that smile will vanish from his lips and frost will creep up over his wintry gray eyes. It's as if ten years have been shed from his face, and he's once against the man who she remembered when she was a new wife—cold and forbidding, never overtly threatening, but one more to be avoided than welcomed. And never, never to be welcomed by him.

A high, tinkling crash, the telltale sign of shattered porcelain, comes from down the hall, drawing Shizuka's attention. She follows the source of the noise, and comes upon something of a spectacle.

Four or five servants, trying to make themselves as inconspicuous as possible, scurry ever further out of sight when they see their mistress approach, trying to make themselves invisible against the walls, and darting behind the open doors, praying they don't draw her wrath with this mishap. All but one.

One alone, a young maid with flyaway brown curls and a distressed expression, has not heard Shizuka approach. The source of the crash Shizuka heard lies before the kneeling girl, glinting in the light and claiming blood from her leg. An ancient vase, several centuries old, the green and red and blue shards scattered all about the hardwood floor and the rug.

Shizuka's lips form a thin, tight line. The girl, Yoshie, has a history of clumsiness (as a bent fork and a pile of fallen books—which got her a good shouting at from Kinzo—will attest), but this goes far beyond a normal, forgivable incident. When something this valuable is damaged or broken by a servant under Shizuka's authority, it reflects poorly upon her.

"_What sort of wife is she, that she can't even control her servants and keep her husband's house clean for him?"_

"_How disgusting."_

"_How pathetic."_

"_I guess they just don't have any respect for her. After all, her husband can barely bring himself to look at her."_

So the silent whispers go, tormenting her, buzzing at her ears and stinging her skin.

"Yoshie."

At the sound of that hard, flat voice, Yoshie scrambles to her feet, sketching a deep bow. "Madam." She reeks of fear. Her voice is barely audible, quavering. Her eyes are fixed on the ornate rug. Her knees shake.

A wave of fresh irritation sweeps over Shizuka at the sight of Yoshie's fear. _Spineless girl. _"The cost will be taken out of your salary." Yoshie can not keep from looking stricken at that; she knows all too well that the now-ruined vase cost more than she makes in a year. "If there is another incident like this, you shall be dismissed. Now clean this up."

Not waiting to see if Yoshie heeds her word, Shizuka turns on her heel and retreats back to a place where she will not be disturbed, banishing the incident of Yoshie and the broken vase from her mind as best she can. Half-obscured by heavy, wine-red velvet curtains, her face darkens.

Maybe there are too many years of distance between them for the gulf to ever be closed. Maybe Kinzo is too used to viewing her with a jaundiced eye, too accustomed to looking at her through the veil of apathy and malaise, to ever reconcile himself to the fact that this woman is bound to him, unto death. Maybe, though he was able to change his outlook on life, his attitude towards his marriage is still trapped in stasis, a stagnancy that can not be broken. Maybe she will always be an unwelcome artifact of his past.

_I had thought that maybe things would be different._

Maybe it was too much to ask to have her cake and eat it too.

-0-0-0-

"You're going on a business trip."

"Yes," Kinzo nods shortly. He lays another folded shirt inside his suitcase. "I am. It's very important that I attend a meeting in Tokyo."

Shizuka stares at him, her brow drawn up. It's early morning, and as Kinzo goes about his business, Shizuka standing over him, a servant comes in and opens the curtains, so that the bright winter sunlight, clear and cold, floods the shadowy bedroom.

Kinzo has attended to business in town before and the next town over, of course, and one more than one occasion, talks have run so long into the night that he's had to stay over, not returning home until the next morning or later in the day. But goodness, he's never gone to Tokyo before.

She resists the urge to bite her lip—the gesture of a girl, not a wife and mother. "How long will you be gone?"

At that, Kinzo does not look up. He merely shrugs, and says, "I'm not sure. About a week. Maybe longer. It depends on whether my associates will be easy to convince to accept my terms."

He finishes packing his clothes and what else he will need into his suitcase, and stands. Then, Kinzo does what Shizuka expects least from him, what he has not done in years. Kinzo leans down and kisses her on the mouth. No love, no affection, no tenderness. Not even the illusion of lust masquerading as one of these. The pressure of his mouth on hers is matter-of-fact and unemotional. Too chaste for a man and woman who have been married for more than ten years.

"I'm going," he says, not meeting her gaze. Picking up his suitcase, a servant carrying his other baggage, he leaves, never looking back.

And as he goes, Shizuka decides that she almost would have felt better had he struck her instead.

-0-0-0-

"Another business trip?"

"Yes. To Kyoto, this time. It will probably be more than a week before I come back."

"But it's so soon after the last time…"

Kinzo shrugs, a tense, impatient eagerness clutching his shoulders. "My work is demanding," he says simply, and clutching his suitcase, walks away, as ever, without looking back.

-0-0-0-

The first night in which, again, she has the marriage bed to herself, finds Shizuka lying awake in bed, staring up at the contours of the bed's velvet canopy. Sleep escapes her, the elusive prey as always, and despite herself, Shizuka can't bring herself to go in search of the embrace of oblivion. Sleep might bring her some measure of peace, but she fears that, tonight, what it would bring her instead would not be so merciful.

_What is that bright light? Is it one of the new street lamps?_

_Oh, wait. It's just the moon. The moon, cleft in two._

The half-moon, bathed in light and shadow, reminds Shizuka of herself, with the bright face the moon shows to a world of onlookers, and the dark face that no one ever sees. Here, in the dark, alone, where no one can see anything that might be deemed "shameful", her veneers are shed and put away, and fears and doubts become the order of the night.

It's remembering that's causing the trouble tonight.

Shizuka remembers how Kinzo had looked as he left this morning. She remembers the strange, keen eagerness glittering in his eyes, how every muscle in his body was tense with the longing to go, to leave this house, indeed, this _world_, far behind him, if only for a little while. It had seemed that if he delayed a moment longer, he would have died for longing to leave, his heart so restive and impatient that it would have given out.

Maybe work can inspire that sort of passion. Shizuka has known men who were more in love with their work than they would ever be with their wives, constantly finding excuses to stay long at work when they ought to have been home, attending to their families. It's perfectly possible that Kinzo has simply grown to love his work more than his home—not that that would be difficult—and takes solace in a world kinder to him than the one he came from. Maybe the business of making money simply seems to Kinzo a world he would rather reside in than the world of hearth and home.

But still, she has her doubts.

That intense, visceral eagerness that he displayed goes beyond a simple enthusiasm for his work. It seemed more… _physical_, than anything else. Like instead of longing to be somewhere else, he was longing to see a single person in particular.

If that's the case…

Shizuka flinches, feeling a stabbing pain pierce her chest, assaulting her very heart, and curls up, drawing her legs close. Suddenly, the dark no longer feels so safe; the dark amplifies every worry, every doubt, every gnawing feeling until it's a chorus of murderous uncertainties and suspicions.

Another woman, perhaps.

Oh God, of all the things he could have done, if this is the one that's true, it hurts more than anything else.

"Why?" is a question Shizuka doesn't have to answer. She's sure that if Kinzo's taken a fancy to another woman, even in passing, than remembering that he has a wife wouldn't give him anything resembling moral qualms. He can probably shed the knowledge that he's married the way others shed a winter coat upon entering a warm house. This is the man who was willing to throw away his life in the madness of war, despite having three young children—if he can do that, if he can be that uncaring, than Shizuka's sure that adultery must seem a far lesser sin in his eyes.

_No. Doubtless he doesn't see it as a sin at all. And why should he, in this world?_

Her eyes sting at the thought of Kinzo sharing his bed with another woman, even if only for a night, even if the morning comes and he finds that she is pale and waxen, not half so pretty in daylight, and that he can't even remember her name. It will always wound her to be found so lacking that he has to go looking for the attentions of a mistress or a prostitute to satisfy him.

Suddenly, like voices rising from water, the words of her mother return to her, given more than a decade earlier when she was a woman on the verge of being a wife.

'_A wife is to be chaste, even cold. She must not initiate intercourse, and must encourage her husband's advances as little as possible. Shizuka, if you come off as too inviting, too eager, you will only excite disgust, or lead your husband to suspect your virtue.'_

The temptation to snort is almost overwhelming. _A great deal of help that did me, _Shizuka thinks, but grimaces as she recalls her own fears from that time. At the time in which she was being given this advice, she had been all too eager to follow it. She had been a young woman who knew very little of sex and had been utterly terrified of it. _Will it be painful? _she had wondered. _Is it really as much of a burden as Mother says? _Faced with the unknown, Shizuka had been relieved by the thought that she wouldn't have to encourage him, that she wouldn't have to be the one who took the lead. She was _expected _to be shy and bashful and afraid, and that suited Shizuka just fine.

But maybe it wasn't the best thing to tell her, all things considered.

'_You are to be the mother of his children. What he wants out of you is an obedient wife, a woman to appear with in public, and heirs to inherit what was his when he is dead. If he wants practiced passion and the pretty tricks used to entice a man into bed, he'll seek the attentions of a harlot.'_

_Well he certainly seems to have done that. _Shizuka pulls the sheets up over her shoulders, and wonders at how large the bed seems when she's the only one in it. _At any rate, he may well be seeking the attention of women in other cities, maybe even one in particular. What did Mother say about mistresses?_

It takes a moment to recall the information, just as much because of the pain the words inspire as the years that have passed since they were spoken. When she does remember, however, the words are crisp and clear, as though they were offered to her just an hour ago.

'_Oh, confront him if you must, but if it's a matter of prostitutes, and not a mistress, I would not advise it. If your husband is frequenting the brothels, all it means is that he's looking for the sort of pleasures he knows better than to ask of his virtuous wife. If you confront him over that, you'll only server to anger him, make yourself seem intemperate in his eyes, and drive him into the arms of other women._

'_You are in no danger from a prostitute. They have neither the breeding nor the good name needed to usurp you. Oh, your husband may go looking for whores at night, but in the light of day, he'll not look twice at them. The only women he'll want to be seen with is you._

'_Now, a mistress… A mistress is another matter entirely._

'_It depends on what sort of woman his mistress is, on whether she has ambitions of her own or not, what social class she is from— Well, I say that, but you would probably be better served by this piece of advice: All mistresses are dangerous, no matter what sort of woman she may be. It does not matter if she is high or low, if she wants to usurp you or not, if she has any sort of power over him, be it physical or emotional, she is a threat to you. _

'_In the case of a mistress, you should confront your husband. But for heaven's sake, Shizuka, be careful about how you go about confronting him. If she already has her hooks deep in his flesh, he may take any word against her very badly.'_

Sound advice, she supposes. Now all she needs is the courage to act on it.

And the courage to tell herself that possibly being wrong doesn't make her a paranoid virago.

-0-0-0-

When Kinzo comes back, Shizuka doesn't confront him, but she only has to take a look at his face for the fears burrowed deep within her chest to be confirmed. His cheeks are flushed with the high color of excitement and his eyes practically dance, they sparkle so much. Shizuka keeps her face trained on the ground so he won't see the way every muscle pulls tight.

"Business went well?" she asks, in a deliberately light tone of voice, pretending to misinterpret the afterglow that radiates off of him.

"Very well."

And as the day goes on, Shizuka still does not confront him. She behaves as though nothing is amiss, reading, directing the servants, making sure her children do their homework and sitting next to Kinzo at supper, while thoughts roil through her mind, and her imagination sets to trying its very best to make of every action Kinzo takes as proof of his guilt.

That little smile he wears as he takes his first bite into the pot roast—is he remembering a dish this other woman cooked for him? The tune he hums as he walks down the hall—is it a song his mistress sang while they were together? And the way he breathes so deeply as he walks past a bouquet of red roses (gotten from the florist at an exorbitant price, considering the time of year)—does the fragrance remind him of the perfume his phantom mistress wore?

All these doubts gnaw at her, playing on her mind every time she finds herself near her husband, but still, Shizuka says nothing. She feels as though her heart's turning black, she feels as though it will rot and collapse from the tumor of her suspicions. But she says nothing. She needs to steel her courage, and she needs to bide her time, and wait.

Wait until the moment she knows is coming arrives.

And arrives it does, two weeks later, when Kinzo announces that he's going away on business again.

They are alone—Shizuka would not do what she's planning to do if they were not. It's the night before he's going, and it's now or never; if Shizuka waits, she'll lose her nerve, and possibly never bring herself to ask.

She has to know. She has to.

"Kinzo-san…"

He's packing early, folding clothing into his suitcase. Kinzo doesn't seem to hear her, so absorbed in his packing is he.

Shizuka's fingers clench her skirt. _You have to. Keep your nerve. You have to. _"Kinzo-san," she says, not quite able to keep the shake out of her voice. _Don't let your voice shake like that when you actually talk to him._

This time, her voice carries, and Kinzo stands, frowning slightly. "What is it?" he asks flatly, a certain reluctance carrying over on the words, as though he knows what Shizuka is about to say. And maybe he does.

"I… I was wondering…"

She goes on like this, tripping over her words, and all the while, an impatient frown creeps up Kinzo's face. "Well? Spit it out; we haven't got all night."

_Come on. _Shizuka draws a deep breath. "When you go on your business trips, well, I…" _Oh, just say it. _"Is there another woman?" she asks bluntly.

"What?" Kinzo's face darkens and grows darker with each passing moment, but, to her cost, Shizuka doesn't notice.

_Remember what Mother said. Don't accuse; just offer help. If you accuse, you'll just make him angry. _"Please, tell me what I can do. The thought of…" She swallows. "The thought of…" She finds she can't bring herself to say it. "It grieves my heart," she says thickly, barely able to keep her voice from cracking.

A black, ugly look flashes about Kinzo's eyes. "You're imagining things," he says coldly, glowering at her, and still, Shizuka fails to notice the warning signs.

"Please, think of our children—_your _children. If it's a prostitute, I—"

_Crack! _While Shizuka is still dazed from the stinging force of Kinzo's open hand on her face, he grabs her shoulder. Shaking a finger in her face the way a schoolmaster would when disciplining a naughty child, he snarls, "You have no right to ask these questions of me! It concerns you not who I associate with." With great effort, Kinzo draws in the worst of his sudden rage, but she is still wilting away from him and fury still radiates off of him like heat from a fire.

He lets go of her, taking his hand from her arm as though her skin is putrid, rotting. Shizuka stumbles away from him, heart racing, and falls back onto the bed, her now-huge eyes fixed on his face.

She hadn't expected this. She'd never thought he would—_but what did Mother say? That men will strike their wives if they want to, and no one will raise an objection to it unless he does it in front of them. _Her cheek throbs, already feeling bruised and swollen, and Shizuka shrinks under his gaze, waiting for the blows to rain down.

But just as quickly as rage flooded his skin, it dissipates, and Kinzo's shoulders slump, all the fury draining out of his face. He narrows his eyes and looks away—whether he feels remorse for this, or disgust at himself for losing control, Shizuka will never know.

"You forget yourself," he mutters, and goes back to his packing, Shizuka still staring at him, too terrified to speak or even move.

-0-0-0-

Shizuka looks to Kinzo for his assent before picking up the blueprints—she dares not pick up anything of his, in his presence, without his approval. He nods, fingers steepled, and she lifts it from the table, looking it over.

Though she is no expert when it comes to things like blueprints, building and architecture, she can see, just from these sheets, that what Kinzo is suggesting is grand and massive. _Good Lord, this amount of space could quarter an army. He wants us to live here?_

"This is what you had in mind?" she asks curiously.

Kinzo nods again. "Yes. The builders say it will take a year and a half to build, if they move fast. They're not sure how long it will take to make the mansion ready to live in, though." He stares out the window, that morose, melancholic expression that he's worn so often coming over his face again, and Shizuka frowns.

Ever since the fall, some time in October, he's worn that look from time to time, an expression of yawning sadness and grief stealing over his skin when he thinks no one can see, or sometimes where everyone can see, when he simply doesn't care who plays witness to this mystery melancholy. Sometimes, bitterly, Shizuka wonders if his affair went sour, but does not dare ask, for fear of exciting her husband's rage. He has not so much as made the move to lay hands on her again since that night so many months ago, but she still wouldn't risk it. She still flinches when he makes any sort of sudden move at all.

He still does not confide in her, at any rate.

"Where will it be?"

"On Rokkenjima. I'm buying the island," Kinzo adds as an afterthought.

Shizuka gapes at him. "Buying… buying the island? How will you pay for that?" she demands incredulously.

Kinzo glares at her, and Shizuka takes a step back involuntarily. "It's not your place to ask," he snaps harshly. "How I pay for things, and how I make my money, is none of your concern."

A thousand thoughts race through Shizuka's mind in the moment when Kinzo stares at her expectantly.

Living on Rokkenjima. Shizuka's not sure whether to welcome the thought or fear it—and frankly, her thoughts run more towards fear. That island is remote and removed, unoccupied except for the local wildlife. It's said to be cursed, but what Shizuka fears more is that, if there was some sort of accident, no one would be able to help them.

_And why should we move? Our lives are in Odawara; why should we move to a remote island, so far from where we have made our lives?_

That jealous streak rears its ugly head as well, and Shizuka wonders if he'll have that other woman living on the island too, if she's still alive and they're still together. _Will he have his mistress hidden away there as well? Will he continue that farce?_

But Shizuka voices none of these thoughts. "As you wish," she murmurs, and leaves, not willing to let him see the way her lips quiver.

-0-0-0-

Eva coughs at the dust of the road and smoothes down her skirt as she sits down. When she had first laid eyes on what is to be her school uniform, she shuddered and called it ghastly, but today, she wears that blue sailor suit obediently and, Shizuka thinks, not without a touch of pride. However hideous Eva may think her uniform is, it's a symbol of her intelligence and wealth—how could she wear it with anything but pride?

"What time did the man at the booth say the train would be here?" Krauss asks his mother. He too wears the uniform of a prestigious boarding school, but he's in his third year of junior high, not his first, and he's going to a different school than Eva. If the unflappable dignity with which he asks this question seems a bit overdone, perhaps that's because he's trying to look more mature than Rudolf, who's bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, craning his neck down the train tracks, and Eva, who sits in a chair, slumped and fiddling with her skirt.

Shizuka manages a slightly strained smile for her eldest son. "In another ten minutes—and I don't think we have to worry about it being late."

Krauss nods, still grasping that exaggerated dignity, and does not go to sit with his sister, but instead stands shoulder to shoulder with his mother, hands clasped behind his back. He's taller than Shizuka now, and apart from his dark blond hair, she can't help but marvel at how he resembles his father. Out of all Kinzo's children, Krauss resembles him the most, especially when he wears that neutral expression, glass gray eyes staring straight ahead.

The house is going to seem so quiet with them both gone. Krauss and Eva's boarding schools are far enough away—though thankfully right next to each other, in the same town, so Shizuka knows the two will be in touch with each other if something happens—that they'll only be able to come home on breaks or at the end of term. It had gotten quieter, too, when it was just Krauss who was going, but in that case, Eva was still home, and Eva can raise quite a ruckus when she wants to.

_What if they get sick? What if they get hurt? What if their schools catch on fire? What then? So many things could go wrong with them so far away._

"He's not coming, is he?" Eva bursts out suddenly. Rudolf is still absorbed in waiting for the train, but Shizuka and Krauss turn to her. A bitter thunderclap roils on her cheeks, flushed with ugly color. She stares down at the ground, the corner of her lip twitching madly. They both know who "he" is.

Beside Shizuka, Krauss snorts, a faintly predatory gleam entering his eyes. "Well, I suppose he just couldn't be bothered to see his _daughter _off to school," he taunts her, going from aping the adult to seeming as a considerably younger child in seconds. "After all, you're just a future marriage pawn. The only use you are to him is to be breeding stock; why should he care what school you're going to?"

Those comments sting both the one they intended to sting and the one they didn't. "Krauss," Shizuka says warningly, glaring at her son.

"He never came when you went off to school!" Fire springs up in Eva's bluish violet eyes. "I guess he just doesn't care about where _you're _going either! Or any of us!"

This time, it's Shizuka and _Krauss _who are stung by Eva's sharp retorts, but Shizuka heads them both off before they can tear into each other any further. "Krauss, Eva. Your father is very proud of both of you. His work is demanding. He regrets not being able to see you off to school, but simply can't get away from his work."

"Yeah, sure," Eva mutters, sinking down further into her chair, folding her arms about her chest. A spasm ripples across her face—for a moment, it almost looks as though she's going to cry.

"It's a long way to where we're going." Shizuka is surprised by the lack of fire in Krauss's voice when he speaks, addressing Eva. Now his voice holds—what is it? Understanding? Commiseration? "Why don't we go to a vending machine and get something to drink?"

Eva narrows her eyes at him suspiciously, before nodding slowly. "Sure," she says. Quietly. Tiredly.

Shizuka sighs once she's sure that neither of them can hear her. They both want their father's approval so badly. Eva will never get it—Kinzo has no interest in his daughter, or anyone else's daughter, for that matter. And as much as it stings, Krauss is right. That Eva is a girl means that Kinzo will never care about her achievements, be they in academia, sports, or maybe business if the girl plans on going into that as an adult. All Kinzo will ever care about is if Eva marries a man who increases the Ushiromiya's prestige, and if she has children, plenty of children, to carry on the line in the event of Krauss dying without children of his own. And even then, he'll still discount her, because it has probably never occurred to Kinzo that a woman can be the equal, or even the superior of a man in intellect.

And Krauss is no more likely to ever have his father's good opinion. Kinzo often rails against all of his children, whether it be in private or in public, and when it comes to Krauss, "foppish" is probably the kindest word Shizuka has ever heard Kinzo use to describe his older son. If you were to believe Kinzo, Krauss has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. If you were to ask Kinzo, he would tell you that Krauss is a coxcomb, a puffed-up peacock whose only merit is that he's the oldest son, and that he will never have any talent in business and will probably bankrupt the family within a year of becoming head.

They're just grasping at smoke, both of them.

A few minutes later, the train has arrived and Krauss and Eva, clutching the bags that haven't already been stowed away on the train, are getting ready to embark.

Shizuka straightens Krauss's collar and smoothes down Eva's hair. "Do well," she murmurs. "Attend to your studies and make plenty of friends. Uphold the honor of the Ushiromiya."

Krauss nods. Eva smirks. "Don't worry, Mother. I'll make my classmates look like dunces next to me."

"I'm sure you will. Krauss, look after your sister as best you can."

"I will, Mother."

"Why do I need looking after?"

"Because you're my _sister_, after all."

The train whistle blows before Eva can make a retort. They both rush onto the train, waving and shouting "Goodbye!" to their mother and Rudolf, who hops up and down, trying to make his voice heard over the clamor of other families bidding their children farewell.

Shizuka finds herself waving furiously, even after Krauss and Eva have withdrawn their heads from the open windows, even after the train has vanished out of sight, into the green fields.

-0-0-0-

_Mother,_

_Term started a week ago. I've been sleeping in a dormitory with about forty other girls—that's how many there are in my year—and it's been strange having to share a room with other girls. Even if it is a big room, and I have a bed to myself, it still feels so weird. And I swear, it's never completely silent here. Even in the middle of the night when we're all supposed to be in bed, it's not quiet; a lot of the girls snore. Oh well; at least the bathrooms have shower stalls and not communal showers. You've just got to get up pretty early in the morning if you want to have a hot water shower, is all._

_All of my classes have been really easy; if I didn't know better I'd say they were meant for students two years younger than I am. And yes, I promise I'm studying. I'm not going to get complacent._

_I've made some friends here. Their names are Suzuki Junko-san, Tachibana Yukari-san, and Hachijo Kimiko-san. They're all very nice, and well-brought up enough to not be an embarrassment out in public. I suppose that's always a plus._

_Hope to hear from you soon,_

_Eva_

-0-0-0-

_Dear Mother,_

_Eva and I got to town alright, just a little before dark. Eva ran off with a bunch of girls wearing the same uniform as her, so I assume she found the school. I've only seen her once since. She's acquired a large group of girls to go places with and by all accounts seems to be having the time of her life. I don't think you'll have to worry about her feeling homesick._

_I got those applications you sent me. They all look like very nice schools; I especially like the looks of the one in Tokyo, but I'd be just as happy going to the school here. I'll fill them out as soon as I can and send them back to you so you can mail them on._

_I've been well. Classes are going well; none of them are terribly challenging. I had some of that talk coming from the first-years about my name, but nothing too upsetting; one glare from me and they all scatter. Ichiro and Seiichi joke that with me around, they ought to be warding off the evil eye._

_I hope that you've been well, and that you haven't been sick again; you always scare us so much when you're sick._

_Your son,_

_Ushiromiya Krauss_

-0-0-0-

_Mother,_

_My second year has been going well, and I must say, I like the looks of the second-year dormitories a lot better than the first-year dormitories. Second year students have six girls to a room; still more than I like, but a lot better than sleeping with everyone nearby._

_Second-years get a lot more homework than first-years, but I've been working with Kimiko, Yukari and Junko a lot (Remember them? They're the friends I told you about), so we bear the burden together. It's a lot easier to handle a lot of homework when you're working on it in a group. And no, I don't think that's cheating. Why do you ask?_

_Hope to hear from you soon,_

_Eva_

-0-0-0-

_Mother,_

_Everything has been going well my third year. The classes are still easy, even if the pile of homework is ever growing taller._

_I'm going to have to keep this short; my friends and I are going to see a play in a few minutes. I wanted to tell you, though, that the school is going to set up some telephones for the students' use. Could you give me our phone number? I'll try to figure out the school's number so I can give it to you._

_Eva_

-0-0-0-

"We're leaving in a month."

Shizuka stares at Kinzo, who stands some ten feet away from her down the hall, arms held behind his back, jaw set. "I'm sorry?" she asks politely. She's not sure she heard what he just said; she was checking the windowsills for dust.

Kinzo frowns impatiently. "We're leaving for Rokkenjima for a month. I want you to handle the arrangements." Satisfied that he has been heard properly this time, Kinzo leaves without another word, without giving her time to react.

For herself, the moment those words sink in, Shizuka slumps against the window.

They're leaving… They're leaving in a month. And he wants her to make the arrangements—which is to say, he wants her to make sure that everything is packed and ready to go by the time Kinzo himself is ready to go, while Kinzo attends to his business and makes sure they know where to direct their calls.

And he's only given her a month's notice to do all of this.

Almost out of thin air, a splitting headache forms in her left temple, and Shizuka raises a hand to rub it away. She coughs, the tale end of a cold still clinging to her chest. She goes over what she needs to do in her head, who she needs to call and how many of the servants she needs to mobilize, and at the same time, she flinches, and puts a hand to her chest.

A month.

In a month, she will be going to some far-off island, and chances are she will never see her home again. Even though it holds so many ill memories, even though she has undergone such sorrow here, the thought of leaving wrenches her very soul.

But there's no choice.

In a month, she'll be gone, and she'll never lay eyes on her Odawara again.

-0-0-0-

_My dearest Krauss,_

_I was writing to tell you that by the time term is over, we will have moved to Rokkenjima. I do wish I was able to go to Odawara to pick you and Eva up, but I'm afraid I will be needed on the island in the first few weeks. I will send Genji-san back to Odawara to bring you and your sister here when the time comes; I am sure he will take good care of you both._

_I have sent a letter like this one to your sister, but as soon as you get the opportunity, I would like you to make sure she got it, and if she didn't, to tell her what I have told you. I don't want her finding out about this on the train back to Odawara._

_Your mother,_

_Ushiromiya Shizuka_

-0-0-0-

As the island of Rokkenjima looms ever larger on the horizon, a dark spot in the unbroken expanse of crystalline blue sea, Shizuka can only stare in silence. Ocean spray splatters her face and dampens her skirt and hair—the air inside the cabin was too stale and claustrophobic for her tastes, and she felt as though she would suffocate if made to sit there any longer. At the moment, she can't quite bring herself to care that her skirts whip about in the wind and occasionally expose her legs halfway up her calves. The bracing salt air hides the hitch in her chest and tension in her limbs.

So here's the place where she will spend the rest of her life. The coast is inhospitable, a narrow beach littered by rocks, backed by a steep, sheer cliff nearly forty feet high. If Shizuka squints, she can make out the walkway that she and the others will walk, to make their way up to the new mansion. She'd be lying if she said the walkway looked anything but rickety; Shizuka glances nervously at Rudolf, whose exclamations of excitement can be heard even over the roar of the ocean, and reminds herself to warn him to be careful.

The island is dominated by a dense, wild forest. The outline of gnarled, wild trees tears a gash in the sky—even from here, they appear as the archetypal forbidding forest from fairytales, teeming with dangerous plants and animals. Staring on the deep forest, Shizuka expects at any moment to hear the howling of wolves.

And this place, this remote, lonely place, feels worlds away from anything else.

Shizuka squeezes her eyes shut, the wind pelting her face. Here, she will be cut off from the world. It will be as living in a cloister, except that she will not be required to take the holy vows of Catholic nuns, and she will live here with her family. The only people she will ever see will be her husband, her children, the servants, and anyone Kinzo decides to invite to the island (And she can't help but imagine that _that _number will be small indeed).

In Odawara, even at night, there were the sounds of the city, surrounding them from all angles. Here, there will be silence, and nothing will be the same. Not even the moon will look the same, with the bitingly clear air posing a sharp contrast to Odawara's polluted air.

_I feel like a pilgrim going to live in a distant land. Will anything look familiar to me? Will this ever seem as home? Will I—_

A sharp jolt rouses Shizuka from her thoughts.

They're here.


	7. Close Enough, Almost

I've always wondered exactly what the circumstances of Rosa's conception were. Given that she's younger than Beatrice II, she was conceived at least a few years after Bice died. Why would Kinzo so much as touch his wife after he met Bice? After all, they were no longer young and had three children. To no longer sleep with his wife probably wouldn't have raised much suspicion—as the head of an aristocratic family, he could have affairs or neglect his wife with relative impunity.

So how was Rosa conceived?

Maybe he just got an itch he couldn't work through.

* * *

_Close Enough, Almost_

* * *

At first, when she hears Doctor Nanjo's verdict and is told that she is pregnant again, Shizuka doesn't believe it. She returns to Rokkenjima in a state of silent shock and disbelief, trying to find reasons why, of course, there's no way on Earth she can be pregnant.

For one thing, Shizuka's past forty. Her menstrual cycles grow thinner and less consistent with each passing year. By her age, most women stop trying for children and either resign themselves to childlessness or to waiting until they become grandmothers to again hold an infant in their arms.

What's more, she and Kinzo have only slept together once in the past few months, for the first time since before he went off to war. It was hardly romantic, though no one, least of all Shizuka, would have ever called any of their encounters "romantic"—just the opposite, really. He had behaved as though possessed by some urgent, desperate need, rough and silent and too quick for her to properly relax, and the next morning? The next morning, Shizuka awoke to see him sitting on the edge of the bed, hands wound in his hair. His face was caught in a rictus of disgust and loathing, and even pain. Even now, she's unsure if those vile emotions were directed at her or at himself.

Shizuka has a hard time believing she could get pregnant the very first time she and her husband slept together in years, when she herself is past the age when a woman can get pregnant easily. So no, she does not at first believe Doctor Nanjo's assertion. She can't possibly be pregnant. He must be mistaken, because there's no way she can be pregnant.

It's only the next morning, when she's violently ill _again _just as she has been for the past week and a half, that Shizuka finally brings herself to believe what Nanjo told her.

She's pregnant. _Oh God, _she thinks to herself, collapsing into a chair in the arbor out in the rose garden. She's needed the fresh air to clear her head, even if it is currently a sweltering August. The sweet fragrance of the rose bushes Kinzo insisted be planted, at least, soothe her still-roiling stomach and do something to calm her frayed nerves. Well, the former more than the latter.

After realizing the undignified pose she has adopted (slumped in a chair, her white shirt collar askew), Shizuka sits straight in the wrought iron, white-painted chair, as if she's planning on taking her tea out in the arbor, but her mind still roils and she still feels as though some malicious force is stirring the bile in her stomach, encouraging her to be ill again.

At her age, women who do by some happening become pregnant don't exactly have an easy time of it. Shizuka runs over the reality of miscarriages, stillbirths, and early death, and winces. Krauss and Eva are nearly grown, and Rudolf is no longer a young child; he'll be entering junior high in the spring. But she shudders to think of them motherless; they'd be as good as orphans, for all that Kinzo concerns himself with their raising. And "no longer a young child" and "nearly grown" are still worlds apart from "grown"; who will give them the guidance they need, if not her? Who will be their mother, if not her?

Dark thoughts of being claimed by the icy hands of Death prey on her mind, but Shizuka forces them out, bringing a hand to her stomach and breathing in the perfume-scented air. _I can't go on like this. I can't go on, thinking like this. I really can't._

Goodness knows if she keeps having these horrid thoughts she'll have miscarried by the time the week is out. That won't do her or the baby any good. Shizuka forces her mind away from worries about death and the difficulties of pregnancy at her age. Thoughts about the difficulties of raising a child at her age never cross her mind; she's had so little to do with the practical rearing—such as feeding, cleaning and dressing—of her first three children that the specifics of raising a fourth don't occur to her.

_Well, it's too late. I'm just going to have to live with it—live with the child._

And maybe it will be alright. A child is an anchor; maybe, with the birth of a fourth child, Kinzo will take a more active role in his family's lives.

Okay. Maybe Shizuka's not _that _optimistic. But if he is given a second daughter or a third son, especially the latter, Kinzo might feel induced to spend more time at home, at least. No more of these "business trips." No more disappearing for days on end, without any plausible explanation. Maybe the child would be enough of an anchor to keep Kinzo from venturing away for too long.

Maybe.

-0-0-0-

As with their first three children, Kinzo has insisted on naming his youngest child again. Exhausted, lying in bed, feeling far more drained and exhausted than she had at the births of any of her other children, Shizuka doesn't have the energy to complain, or ask that, maybe, she be allowed to name this last child. She can only hold the baby in her arms, and, despite herself, breathe a sigh of relief when he leaves, even if he quits the birthing chamber with no small relief himself.

Shizuka has no desire for Kinzo to remember strongly the way she looks now, with her hair clinging to her neck and cheeks, her face wan and chalky, purple-ringed eyes drooping, all the energy gone from her body, utterly spent. She doesn't want him to be able to remember her, the way she is now, exhausted and undesirable and so horridly _ordinary_ looking, and use it as an excuse to stray away from the confines of the marriage vows.

Ah, back to the newest baby's name. Well, at least it's a name Shizuka can easily pronounce. Kinzo seemed to have it in mind to give his sons names that, at first, anyway, were nearly impossible for a Japanese speaker to pronounce, but to give his daughters infinitely simpler names.

Rosa.

As Shizuka understands, it's some sort of Latin or Italian name, meaning 'rose.' She wonders if he just thought up the name while waiting outside in the rose garden. Oh well. It's a pretty name, a pretty name for a pretty girl.

Rosa is a small baby—she was born, after all, a couple of weeks early; smallness simply wasn't something that could be avoided—and really is quite extraordinarily pretty, even given that Shizuka can't help but think that all babies, boy or girl, are pretty. A fine layer of fuzz such a pale shade of blonde that it almost seems white coats her head. Her eyes are the same shade of pale, winter blue Rudolf's were before they turned brown. And her skin is so soft, so smooth, that her mother's fingers ache to touch it, to stroke that silken, tender skin.

But still, the thread of disappointment pervades.

Maybe it's because Rosa wasn't the third son Shizuka had half-hoped for—another son to further secure the succession. Maybe it's because, when Rosa's older siblings discovered that Shizuka was pregnant again, none of them were at all happy about it—they see Rosa as just another mouth to feed, just another child who will split up their father's inheritance, a child sibling they'll have to share the money with, a nuisance. Maybe it's because Kinzo wasn't as solicitous as Shizuka had hoped he would be—but then, he's never been particularly solicitous of her health, not even after childbirth, so why should he be attentive now?

Maybe it's because, even after she's had a child here, Rokkenjima still doesn't feel like home. Even after giving birth to a child here on this island, Shizuka still feels as though the mansion is just a place she's occupying temporarily, that it wasn't really built for her to live in at all.

Oh well. Shizuka tries to push past that. Whatever her disappointments are, she has a new, healthy daughter to welcome to the world. Surely this makes up for—

Rosa starts to cry.

The thin, piercing wails bear little in the way of volume—the child's lungs are not lusty enough for that—but they feel as though they are knives set to penetrate her mother's ears. Rosa's crying fills up Shizuka's hearing; blood rushes in her ears. Suddenly, all feelings of warmth for this child are gone. She doesn't want to hold Rosa anymore; she doesn't want to even look at her. She just wants the child to go somewhere far away, where she won't have to hear her wailing…

"Madam?" Kumasawa, stepping forward from her place near the door, seems to have noticed the way Shizuka's face contorted; she bears a look of faint concern. "Do you want me to take Rosa-sama?"

"Yes," Shizuka chokes out, holding the baby out for Kumasawa to take, willing her to spirit the child away as soon as possible. "Please, take her to the room prepared for her. I'm tired. I need to rest."

Even after she is alone again, even after Rosa has been taken to her room, far away from Shizuka's bedchamber, the ghostly echo of Rosa's shrill cries are all Shizuka can hear. She just wants it to go away.

-0-0-0-

For Krauss, for Eva, for Rudolf, Shizuka would spend hours at a time in their nurseries playing with them when they were babies. She took joy in it, real, genuine joy, to be a mother and to be able to claim that she had fulfilled the most important requirement of an aristocrat's wife. With each child born, the weight lifted off of her shoulders a little more, and with Rudolf's birth, she could breathe a sigh of relief, because Krauss had his heir and his second son as insurance, and no more would be expected of her in terms of childbearing. Content that she would be the mother of three children, she could focus on her duties as mother and supervisor of the servants.

She finds that she doesn't spend nearly as much time with Rosa, though.

The sensation of utter revulsion that swept over her the night Rosa was born has lost its terrible strength, but it still lingers on. Every noise Rosa makes, be it cooing, crying, or simple yawning when tired, is abhorrent to Shizuka's ears. Rosa's wails sound like someone drawing their fingernails down a chalkboard; her little coos of happiness sound just the same. No longer does Shizuka want to hold or even touch her; she can barely stand to be near her.

Shizuka spends as little time in Rosa's nursery as decorum allows, always feeling relieved, despite herself, to no longer have to be in the company of a child whom she knows in her mind is her child, but finds she can not fully open her heart to, and can not bring herself to hold her for more than a few seconds.

As soon as she leaves and can no longer hear Rosa's wretched noise, guilt sweeps over her like the sea churning against the rocks outside. It's not right to feel this way, she tells herself, over and over again. It's not right for her to feel this way about her own daughter. She's Rosa's mother; she ought to love her with all her heart and want to be in her company all the time. She shouldn't feel the urge to flee whenever her eyes rest on that small, round face. It's just not natural. It's just not right.

So Shizuka showers her daughter with presents in the service of assuaging her guilty conscience. All the best-made toys, all the prettiest dresses—and at least Rosa doesn't pull at them, deliberately tear them or simply refuse to wear them like Eva did; unlike Eva, Rosa _likes _dresses. If Krauss had looked like a prince surrounded by his toys, Rosa resembles nothing so much as an empress in her white muslin frock, sitting among a hobby horse and a multitude of fine porcelain dolls.

But no amount of gifts can erase the guilt in Shizuka's heart, or the ugly emotions that put it there. Rosa is the darling of the servants, especially Kumasawa and her nursemaid, who are particularly fond of her, but Shizuka still keeps her distance, still avoids her if at all necessary.

And when she looks out the window on a gray day and sees a small girl playing in the rose garden, all alone, all Shizuka can do is turn her eyes away from the glass, and put the image from her mind.

-0-0-0-

Shizuka rests the long, shallow white box on the table, undoing the blue satin ribbon keeping the box shut. She smiles a little to see that the box's contents are exactly as advertised. Resting in a bed of silver tissue paper is a navy blue, child's pea coat. "Rosa?" she calls.

No answer.

"Rosa?" Almost immediately, her voice goes from gentle to an irritated snap. "Rosa, come here," Shizuka tells her daughter sharply.

Half-shrouded by the evening dusk, Rosa looks up from her coloring book. She is a four-year-old girl with rosy cheeks and small hands. Her eyes have lost the blue tint of infancy and have since turned a warm honey brown. Her once-flaxen hair is now starting to lose its pure blondeness; it's still too early to say, however, whether it will settle on brown, or red like Eva's hair. She beams at the sight of a new coat to try on, but apprehension flits behind her eyes as she comes forward.

"Try this on," Shizuka says, handing the coat to her daughter gingerly, willing Rosa not to knock any of the buttons off by mistake. Rosa's outgrown all of her winter coats; Shizuka's hoping this one will fit. _Considering what I paid for it, _she thinks grimly, _it had better fit._

As Rosa is pulling the thick coat on and fiddling with the buttons, struggling with small, chubby fingers to get it shut, Shizuka's eyes happen to stray towards the window, when she sees a sign of movement.

_It's him. _She rushes to the window, bracing her hands on a sill. It's only because of his pale hair that she noticed him at all. Kinzo is moving beyond the rose garden, beyond the chapel he forbade any of his family to approach, heading towards the trees. Her lips settle in a thin, grim line, and Shizuka feels her heart sink like a stone as, without so much as a backward glance, Kinzo disappears amongst the gnarled trees of the forest.

He's gone into the forest again. Kinzo claims he likes to walk about in the forest and has forbidden anyone to follow him when he takes his walks—he's even gone so far as to fabricate stories about a witch lurking in the forest in order to scare off Rosa and the younger servants from the Fukuin House. But Shizuka has her own suspicions about why Kinzo departs at all hours to skulk about the trees, and it has nothing to do with solitude or searching for a witch.

_He doesn't even have the decency to mask it as a "business trip" anymore._

And then there was that time, about a month ago, when Krauss came to Shizuka one wild, stormy night, and told her that Rudolf and Rosa had seen the figure of a woman walking about in the rose garden. A woman none of them recognized. That only confirmed Shizuka's suspicions, even if Rosa was in hysterics about "the witch of Rokkenjima."

_I must call Genji-san and tell him to have the servants search the mansion again. If he's keeping his mistress somewhere here, in some secret room, we'll find it. Oh, rest assured, we'll find it._

"Rosa!"

Apparently, the coat fits. Delighted at having a new piece of clothing to hang in her wardrobe, Rosa is dancing about in her coat, twirling on tiptoe.

"That is utterly unfitting behavior for a daughter of the Ushiromiya family!" Shizuka snaps, glowering at her youngest child. Rosa abruptly stops dancing, wilting under her mother's withering gaze. "You are not to dance about in public like some common mill worker's daughter. Give me that coat, gather up your things and go to your room."

"Yes, Mama," Rosa mutters faintly, staring at the floor. She relinquishes the coat, gathers up her coloring book and crayons, and she does leave, every bit as fast as she can. Rosa never lingers long in a place where anger touches the walls.

And once she's gone, Shizuka can only stare out the window and sink her fingers into the soft cloth of Rosa's coat.

-0-0-0-

She tries. She tries to banish these evil, uncharitable thoughts about her daughter from her mind. It's not right to have to force and fake affection. It's not right to feel such resentment against her daughter for reasons she can't even explain to herself. And no matter how many toys, no matter how many clothes, no matter how many ice cream cones Shizuka buys Rosa, more in the attempt to bury her own guilt than to make her child happy, she can't say goodbye to those feelings in her heart.

When she's near Rosa, when she has to interact with her, there's still that bitter edge on her tongue, always.

Maybe it's because of the crayons she left out in the arbor the week before—they melted and no amount of cleaning could completely eradicate the blue, red and purple stains from the stone.

Maybe it's because of the tear in her blue-and-white checkered pinafore.

Maybe it's because she wears her long hair in pigtails to school.

Maybe it's because her grades at school aren't as good as Eva's, or Krauss's, or even Rudolf's. Maybe it's because Rosa isn't naturally brilliant the way her siblings are.

Maybe it's because she slurps her soup.

All of these excuses Shizuka can offer up, all to an unfeeling God who has seen fit to give her this heart so bitter against her child. She can make excuses all she likes, but the truth remains that this bitterness, this resentment, still exists even when Rosa hasn't done anything, even when Rosa is completely innocent of wrongdoing.

And all she can do is pretend that nothing is wrong, and still bear the gnawing in her heart, even as she respond to Rosa's smile with a hand through hair that feels like strands of silk.

It doesn't feel like the hair of any child of hers, though.


	8. The Thin Line Between

About Natsuhi's age, I know she seems, well, young, but I did some calculations. By the wiki, Natsuhi is forty-seven in 1986. Now, depending on the source, it took Natsuhi either eight or twelve or some other number of years to have Jessica; I go with twelve, since that's what I heard first. Jessica's eighteen, so Natsuhi's been married to Krauss for thirty years, so by that, she was seventeen when she was married.

* * *

_The Thin Line Between_

* * *

The mansion, indeed, the whole of Rokkenjima, is in a frenzy of cleaning and beautifying. Fresh cuts of roses, along with bouquets of white camellias and white lilies from the mainland, have been arranged in vases all over the mansion; their fragrance makes the air thick and heady. The windows have been polished so ferociously that they now show an observer's face every bit as clearly as the view outside. The floors have been vacuumed and scrubbed; the dust has been beaten out of the curtains, the tablecloths, the bed sheets. The home of the Ushiromiya gleams and sparkles, and seems like a house that no one lives in.

But that is perfectly reasonable, considering the circumstances.

After all, in a few hours, a new resident will be coming to stay for the rest of her days.

Shizuka sits in front of her vanity, alone, readying herself for the wedding. She's trusted Rosa to a young maidservant fresh from the Fukuin House, and has dismissed her own maidservant, wishing to be alone. She wants to think, to brush out her hair on her own without some clumsy maid pulling too hard and hurting her scalp, and to reflect on what she knows of her incipient daughter-in-law.

Her name is Natsuhi. She is seventeen (the same age as Rudolf, coincidentally) to Krauss's twenty-two. As Shizuka understands, the girl, who was not finished with her schooling when the engagement was announced, has made arrangements to withdraw from high school in order to be a full-time housewife. She does, it seems, want to give the impression of being serious about being a wife, even if this wasn't a decision made with her consultation.

The girl, Natsuhi, belongs to a family deep in debt to Kinzo. They've been taking out loans with him for years, trying to recover something of the wealth they'd lost in the months following the Japanese surrender. Finally, there was nothing left for them to loan. All their money was gone. All their properties, including the one on which they lived, had been offered up as collateral. They had nothing but the clothes on their backs and fists clenched with papers promising the money back one day. Kinzo chose that exact moment to call in their debt. In full.

Well, of course that impoverished old clan floundered. They had no money to give him, pled and pled for more time. _"Please give us a year, two years, maybe three, and we'll have your money back for you. Please just give us time."_

Kinzo was not impressed, but he did have an offer to make them, an offer that makes Shizuka think that he had probably been bleeding them dry on purpose.

There is a daughter in their family, he observed mildly, that is of an age to be married. And Kinzo's eldest son is also of an age to be married, and yet has no intended. If they consented to have Natsuhi marry Krauss, he would refrain from throwing them all in debtor's prison. It would not get them their money back, or their lost properties, but they would at least get off with the skin still on their backs.

They had, of course, complained when Kinzo offered only a pittance for Natsuhi's dowry, but he had retorted _"The daughter of fools is worth nothing; be glad I give you anything at all, and not instead demand that you compensate _me _for accepting a woman who is likely as big a fool as her parents into my family." _The threat was clear, and they were silenced.

All the arrangements have been made. The ceremony will be held in the entrance hall in three hours; a priest has been called from Niijima, as the shrine on Rokkenjima has been abandoned for decades. Natsuhi is somewhere else in the house, being attended to by the maidservants of her intended's family, instead of by her mother or any of her female kin; none of her family will be putting in an appearance for the wedding today. She said her goodbyes before dawn today. She is alone here.

As Shizuka continues brushing out her hair, running the teeth of her comb through her long locks languorously, she sees, for the first time, telltale signs in the mirror of age that she never noticed before. There are lines about her mouth and eyes that not even the most favorable of lighting can hide. The skin on her neck sags; that same skin is loose on her hands in places it has never been loose before. And in her hair, in her once luxurious, gleaming auburn hair, there nestles infectious, unsightly gray strands, multiplying with every passing minute.

When did age creep upon her? When did she lose the blush of youth and become this withering hag? Shizuka's lip pulls hideously at the sight of her wan, positively cadaverous face. _I look as though I'm tottering on the edge of my grave. I don't look like the mother of a five-year-old girl; I look more like Rosa's _grandmother _than her mother._

With every passing day, with every moment that passes and she can not tear her horrified eyes from the mirror, her youth slips further away from her. With every day, she is less the young, attractive woman she once was. Her ability to keep Kinzo at home, always tenuous at best, passes through her fingers like sand with each new gray hair. How can she expect him to stay at home when his wife appears to him as an unsightly old woman?

A thunderclap over her face, Shizuka resumes her brushing, but with each stroke of the comb she has to restrain herself from ripping every single gray hair out of her head.

-0-0-0-

A decorous silence is maintained as the priest performs the purification rites. Shizuka occasionally glares at Rosa, further down the line as dictated by decorum, to keep her from fidgeting or making an embarrassment of their family. And she herself has to restrain the urge to cough; the thickness in her chest of a cold has remained these past few days, all but impossible to dislodge. Funny how easily she's felled by these things these days.

This is the first times Shizuka has laid eyes on her daughter-in-law; she didn't come down this morning to greet her for fear of transmitting the cold lodged in her chest to the new bride. Now, though, she has plenty of time to assess the girl, and drinks in the sight of Natsuhi.

Looking at her, Shizuka almost wonders if her parents hadn't lied about her age; the girl looks closer to fifteen than seventeen. She's slightly built, almost wispy, with a thin little nose inclined towards sharpness and pale cheeks. Her eyes are downcast, as Shizuka's were on her own wedding day, but unlike Shizuka, Natsuhi never once turns her gaze upwards to look at Krauss.

The bride and groom are both dressed traditionally; frankly, Shizuka's surprised Kinzo let that pass, considering his own hatred for what he calls "glorified pajamas", but decides that maybe he'd decided to give some sort of concession to traditions today. It's the first time Krauss has ever worn traditional dress, and will probably be the last; he looks distinctly out of place in his wedding clothes, as though he's been displaced several decades from a simpler, easier time.

Natsuhi wears the tsuno kakushi on her head, a popular tradition with brides these days (If they don't go for a completely Western wedding, anyway). Shizuka wonders if that hat is heavy, for Natsuhi's head is bowed in such a way to suggest the image of a flower that wilts because the bloom is too heavy. Her head could be bowed because of the weight of her responsibilities, Shizuka supposes. Of course, she looks nervous too, but that could be because, from today on, she'll likely never see her family again, or it could be because Eva's glaring daggers at her from her place in the line. _I doubt Natsuhi wanted to start off her life in the Ushiromiya family by having one of her sisters-in-law give her the evil eye._

Come to think of it, given the sheer malevolence radiating off of Eva, Natsuhi's more likely to be nervous because of her than because of any uncertainty concerning her future here.

Watching them is like being transported back more than twenty years and standing out of her body as an observer to her own wedding. Was that what she had looked like, Shizuka wonders, small, alone, downcast, afraid? Krauss's expression isn't nearly so daunting as Kinzo's was (_Is now_, she notes, after a quick glance in his direction), but Natsuhi looks just the same as she must have.

Shizuka finds herself wondering exactly what Natsuhi makes of her situation. What does she make of the parents who sold her like cattle or old furniture in order to pay off their debt? What does she think of this place, so far from the town she called home? What does she think of the people she will from this day on call Father, Mother, Brother, Sister, Husband? And how does she feel about watching whatever dreams she had dying under the weight of reality, as all dreams must on Rokkenjima?

The feeling that blooms in her chest, that which she first mistakes for another coughing fit, that bitter, plaintive sensation, is not exactly sympathy. After all, this situation is hardly the worst Natsuhi could have found herself facing. If Kinzo had chosen to demand that Natsuhi's family debt be repaid to him rather than have her marry Krauss, the girl would likely be begging for her bread on a roadside by now, or working in the fields like a peasant. No, this is not the worst place Natsuhi could have found herself; in fact, it's one of the best. She marries into a family that is wealthy, has prestige to outdo her own, and gains stability for the first time in years.

But at what price?

What Shizuka feels for Natsuhi instead is pity, a less egalitarian emotion; sympathy is what you afford an equal, but pity is tight-fistedly expended on your inferiors. Pity is spared for the young girl so abruptly torn away from everything she knew, who is utterly beholden to her groom's family, who would have every right to think of herself as a sacrifice to some pagan altar. She's being sold to some foreign land, and her parents didn't even bother to show up to see her off.

The purification rite over, the young couple (_non-couple; they only met today, but that's only one more thing they have in common with Kinzo and Shizuka_) are called forward by the priest, and the resemblance becomes so vivid it hurts, a deep, piercing pain in her heart like the stab of a knife.

-0-0-0-

Later, when they have a moment alone amidst all the subdued celebrations where Eva is surly, Kinzo dour, Rudolf fidgety, Rosa too young to really understand the significance of the wedding and Natsuhi's situation, and the young couple silently awkward, Shizuka will say to Krauss:

"I know that you will do what you think is best. And I know that you may never come to love her. But promise me, that for all the years that that girl is your wife, you will never make her feel as though she is not wanted."

There are so many things more that Shizuka could say to Krauss. _"Be kind to her." "Talk to her." "Care for her." "Be mindful of her feelings and don't run off with other women just because you have an itch." _All these things she could say, but won't, for fear for sullying the dignity of her position, for fear of revealing too much of her heart to her son, more than what he needs to see.

Krauss just looks at her like she's asked him the most elementary, the most childish question in the world.

"Why would I do that? I'm stuck to her until death, aren't I? It would be pretty stupid to alienate your spouse like that."

"_Promise me."_

"I promise. But really Mother, why would I want to do that?"

_We shall see_, Shizuka thinks to herself grimly. _We shall see._

* * *

For notes on the tsuno kakushi, see the bottom of Chapter One. And I do think that Krauss, while he is responsible for a good number of Natsuhi's migraines, is likely a considerably better husband to Natsuhi than Kinzo was to his wife.


	9. Cancerous

_Cancerous_

* * *

The thickness in her chest, sickness still clinging to her like a cancer, only grows heavier and more noxious when she sees Kinzo making his by-now all-too-familiar progress towards the wild forests of Rokkenjima. His audacity is tremendous. Anyone old enough to understand the workings of human lust knows exactly what he has in mind whenever he ventures into that forest, and anyone old enough to know that also knows the sort of shame he brings down on his wife with his blatant disregard of her.

Marching out into the hall, face grim, Shizuka calls two maids away from their dusting and tells them sharply to start searching the house for anything that would resemble an unaccounted-for room, and moves on to notify the other servants to quit their cleaning and search as well. She's organized searches like this more than two dozen times now, but still does, at every opportunity. The Ushiromiya mansion is massive; you could hide a secret inhabitant quite easily if you were truly determined, and even after a thorough search that secret person might not be found.

As Shizuka herself goes to sit in an armchair, short of breath as she almost always is these days, she reflects broodingly, chin propped on her fist, that they probably won't find anything.

_Why do I keep organizing these searches? What I ought to do is follow _him. _I'll find the answers if I just manage to follow him to wherever it is he's going._

Though she still mobilizes the servants to search for any hint of a mistress in the mansion, Shizuka has long since come to realize that if Kinzo is hiding his mistress somewhere on Rokkenjima, he probably had another house built for her at the same time as the mansion, somewhere that can't be spotted from the ocean. She still has the servants search for any sign of women's clothing that can't be attributed to her, Natsuhi or Rosa (Eva has long since moved away), still has them search for any sign that there is another woman somewhere on this island, but she's long since lost hope of catching the woman herself.

_Why does he care nothing for the shame he brings to his children? Why does he care nothing for the shame he brings to me? _she rages in her heart, swallowing down on the cough that rises in her throat yet again. Her capacity for wounded melancholy has long since vanished, and all that is left in her heart is anger, anger at this shabby treatment, at the way he doesn't even bother with discretion.

_And what appeal can this woman still have to him? _Unless he's been moving through several women, Kinzo has had this mistress of his for more than twenty years now, and unless she was a child when he first claimed her, she's likely no longer young. With an ugly, vindictive sort of satisfaction, Shizuka imagines the once glamorous woman's tiny waist thickening over the years, the luster going from her hair, all the youthful, rosy color from her cheeks. She maintains a shoddy mockery of youth with clothes too young for her, thick, gaudy makeup that tries to hide the wrinkles but only serves to make them more distinct. Kinzo has always had an appreciation of beauty, but once it fades he reacts with revulsion. So why hasn't he rejected her?

What makes him cling to her? Unless he is the most vile of hypocrites, he has little esteem for book learning in a woman, so it can't be her intelligence. He's never had much love for small talk, either, so they likely don't talk over trivial things. Does he rant to her about work, about his family? Does he drag the names of his wife and children through the mud and coach her to sympathize with his struggles?

The thought of some low, loose woman laughing unkindly about Kinzo's lack of regard for her makes her blood boil, but Shizuka does not open her mouth to scream. Screams reverberate inside her skull and flay the skin within her mouth, but she will never let another hear them, even if they deafen her. But oh, the fight to maintain her propriety grows harder every time she watches him disappear!

She feels as though totally dominated by her bitterness, but has ceased to care. Shizuka raises her hand over her mouth as she coughs, eyes watering, and she makes up her mind.

Searching the mansion is useless. The woman likely does not call this mansion her home, and even if she did, and the servants found her, they likely wouldn't tell Shizuka what they found. After all, as Shizuka has bitter reason to know, the servants are loyal to Kinzo first; they likely do not care what she feels, and will show greater favor to the one Kinzo favors.

No. The next time Kinzo steals away into the forest, Shizuka won't set the servants to hunt about the mansion, searching for any sign of the elusive mistress. Instead, she will simply follow Kinzo, doing her best not to be spotted, and finally figure out where he's hiding his woman.

And when she sets eyes upon the woman…

Shizuka swallows, shutting her eyes. Her limbs feel as lead, and her lungs are heavier than ever. When she finds the woman Kinzo's been hiding, the low, petty woman who was content to whore herself out to a married man, she's not sure what she'll do.

The thought of finally being able to exorcise this other woman entirely leaves her both in ecstasy and despair. Ecstasy, because she'll be gone, and despair because she'll finally know for sure how poorly she was played.

(And of course, what she'll never know is that the truth of this is both better and worse. Far, far worse.)

-0-0-0-

Her opportunity comes a week later. Kinzo had been gone for two days that last time, but for once she didn't bombard him with questions or shoot surreptitiously furious glares in his direction—not that he noticed, of course; Kinzo never notices the lack of unpleasantness, but only complains when things are not as he would prefer them to be.

Anyway.

It's summer, but she can only feel cold—Shizuka never feels properly warm anymore, hasn't since the days when she could call her health good and her lungs light. Even the lightest breeze that would have felt pleasant ten or twenty years ago is the winter's icy breath, wielding knives so keen that they cleave her flesh from the bone.

Nor can she enjoy the exquisite fragrance of Kinzo's prized roses. The summery perfume seems as musty rot in her nostrils, and she tries to push it from her mind. No matter how her surroundings seem too bright, too cold, too noxious, too unreal, she can't let that distract her mind. She can't let anything distract her.

_He went that way, _she remembers, eyes falling to the stretch of dense trees encroaching on the far side of the chapel. After making sure that Kinzo isn't close enough to still hear her entering the forest that he has forbidden all to approach, Shizuka starts her own progress through the tangle of gnarled branches.

_Where has he gone? _she wonders, as she struggles just to keep her feet on the ground and her progress forward instead of back towards where she came from. It seems as though the forest has simply swallowed Kinzo alive, for she sees no trace of him, no flutter of a coat hem, no flash of white hair. Shizuka may as well be alone here, trying to track down a ghost who has long since fled the mortal realm.

She can only hope that the forest will open up and give way to a path of some sort, or at least have a forest floor not coated with tree roots, saplings, fallen branches and bushes. As it is now, Shizuka can barely move for feeling something sharp pressing into her side, her leg, or for having to push a branch away from her head or having to duck a branch too stiff and well-grown to be bent. The undergrowth is so dense, so overgrown that she can barely move at all. Surely Kinzo doesn't take this path every time he goes to visit his mistress. Surely there must be some sort of path somewhere up ahead, somewhere it will be at least bearable to have to put down her feet.

Onward she presses, but the forest never opens up. She never finds a path. She never finds a secret house. She never finds the woman. She never even finds Kinzo. It's as though, when he entered this forest, he was transported to another realm, and she was simply left here, to walk in circles in a mortal forest. There's not even any sign of birdsong here.

Eventually, Shizuka has to turn back. She has to accept that, today at least, she's not going to solve the mystery of her husband's not-so-secret mistress. It is with disappointment and a heavy heart that she struggles back towards where the forest thins and the mansion can be seen looming even through the screen of trees. She emerges with tears in her skirt and twigs in her hair, and though all may shy away from her when they see, Shizuka doesn't notice.

She's only forming a plan for next time.

-0-0-0-

The next time, Shizuka doesn't wait quite as long to go after Kinzo, instead intending to tail him so closely that she'll have to hide behind a tree if he ever turns around. _Surely I won't lose him this time. Surely I won't have to turn around this time. Surely I'll succeed._

Or so she thought.

Again, she has been thwarted. Shizuka is lost in a tangle of trees and Kinzo has vanished into thin air. There's nothing to do but turn around and head back towards the mansion, nursing her bitterness until it eats a hole in her heart.

_Why can I not be allowed to succeed? I am the one in the right; she is just the one who exists outside of the bounds of propriety. I should be allowed to find her, to banish her, to exorcise her from this existence here. So why am I not even allowed to catch a glimpse of the place where he's hidden her?_

She can hear the roaring of the ocean surf from here, booming against the rocks. Instead of struggling through a forest that simply does not want to let her go, Shizuka will walk home along the narrow strip of land between forest and cliff face where there are no trees.

A few minutes of struggling later, the salt air hits her face and Shizuka winces under the stiff ocean breeze. She coughs, and trembles with a faltering step. She's out of breath as usual, but all of a sudden she feels so weak too… Or maybe it's just the cold seeping into her bones, trying to make her lie down here and rest. She can't rest, though, not on the precipice of a cliff. _I have to get home. It will be evening in a few hours; I can't be wandering out here in the dark._

She blinks her bleary eyes as she goes on. She knows she's getting nearer to the mansion; she can hear the chapel bell ringing out the hour, quite clearly now. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five. _The deep, sonorous bell chimes, and she knows she's getting closer.

But then the ground gives out beneath her, and suddenly, she's not close to home at all.

-0-0-0-

Shizuka had been close enough to the mansion that a gardener working outside heard her scream as she fell. Thankfully, the cliff face was relatively shallow where she fell-only about twelve feet—but she landed wrong in the sand and broke her leg. If she had fallen at any point beyond twenty feet before where she did, the fall likely would have resulted in her death.

Doctor Nanjo bandaged her leg and put it in a cast. Krauss and Natsuhi visited her the first night; Rosa did as well, her young, teenage face awash in tears, and Shizuka could only turn her face from her awkwardly.

She had been put on bed rest, and Natsuhi took over her duties while she was bedridden. The young woman takes to management well, even if her manner towards the servants when anything but cheerful is not precisely ideal. The mansion, at least, is in good hands for the time being.

Shizuka stared through the door, waiting for Kinzo to come. If it had been to ask if she was well, or even just to berate her for disobeying him and going into the forest, she wouldn't have cared, so long as he came, so long as he knew that she was hurt and was something other than indifferent to the news of her injury.

But that doesn't matter. None of it does. It all pales in comparison to one simple truth.

When she was finally told that her leg had healed enough for her to walk, however gingerly, upon it, Shizuka tried to get out of bed. But she couldn't. She couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't get up at all.


	10. Dusty Death

_Dusty Death_

* * *

Nowadays she feels as though her lungs are filled with water; she expects to spout brine like a whale whenever she takes a breath. She feels as though she has been doused in the sea as well, for even the slightest breeze on her skin is as the prickling of frost. Her form is lost in quilts and blankets that pulse with the faltering force of her labored breath.

Dr. Nanjo has left, packing up his bags, a melancholy but strangely unreadable expression on his face. He muttered something in Natsuhi's ear before he left, so softly that she couldn't make out a word. Somewhere, in some recess in her mind, she can't help but think that if he has something to say about her, he ought to say it to _her_, instead of Natsuhi. She's not a child too small to understand such information, and she's not dead, not yet. He shouldn't talk about her like she's not in the room.

But Shizuka doesn't say so. Before, she would have refrained from such out of concern for propriety. Now, she finds she's no longer capable of it at all, even though she would like very much to say otherwise.

Funny how that works.

Krauss has been around, Rudolf and Eva too with their spouses, but they've all since gone. Vanished like smoke blown away by a hearty autumn wind. But they've never lingered long to start with. They always wanted to be out from under her skirts, free of her hand. Even as the smallest children, they wanted their independence, and have been loath to give it up since then for even the smallest amount of time. They won't stay on here, in this room with her, not for any longer than propriety requires of them, not even to sigh and ask after her health.

And Kinzo, Kinzo won't come at all. More than independence from her, all he's ever wanted from his wife is for her to vanish like smoke. She was always so convenient, the way she refused to be invisible. Well maybe he'll get his chance ere too long.

She's starting to wonder if he'll ever warm to her. After all, they've been married for what, six, seven years now? They have three children, and Krauss and Eva are old enough to notice the distance between them. Even if it's only for their sakes…

No. No, that's not right. That's not right at all. Those are the thought of long ago, of a past that has withered, and the hopes for a future that slipped from her fingers an eternity ago. That's not there here and now she needs to focus on.

The sunlight's slanting through the window, painting a bright square on her bed, just over her knees encased in wool, silk and linen. The shadows too are long; a tree's branches seem to be casting little cracks all over the floor and the walls. It must be afternoon, she supposes. The shadows weren't quite this long the last time she awoke from her long naps. No, the shadows are never this long in the morning.

Natsuhi's bustling about the room, straightening things that she thinks aren't in the proper place of position, as she always does when she is less than completely composed. As one can imagine from the girl's high-strung disposition, she's straightening things up a great deal. Since Shizuka's confinement within this room began, Natsuhi has rearranged the furniture and the ornaments on top of it no less than half a dozen times. Shizuka would like to raise her voice to tell her to stop, but as with her irritation with Doctor Nanjo talking about her as though she's not in the room, Shizuka can't find the energy to do it.

Every breath now is a struggle and she finds herself wondering just what her life has been.

_Oh, wouldn't it just be easier to let my lungs fill with water? After all this time, after all of my struggles to stay afloat, wouldn't it just be easier?_

No. Shizuka tells herself, again and again, that if she wants to become completely waterlogged, that's fine, but she really ought to wait until Kinzo shows up to see her off. At this rate, she'll likely still be waiting when Time calls it a day and brings an end to eternity. As it is, throughout the stream of visitors, however much the stream is really a trickle, Kinzo has been resounding with his absence. She expects every shadow she sees to be his, but still, he never comes.

She's not sure why she's still waiting for him, after so many years of watching the door for his shadow, but never seeing it approach.

And again, what has her life been?

Maybe she had had dreams once, but she can't remember what they were. More likely she had had her head filled with the assurances of what was expected of her since girlhood. Shizuka can imagine herself daydreaming about what her husband would be like, about how many children she would have and the great big house they'd all live in happily ever after, but she can no longer remember these flights of fancy herself. Whenever she tries to recall her childhood, all she gets is a false image clearly manufactured by her guiltily empty-handed mind.

And what has become of those dreams, those distant, ashen fantasies that may never have existed at all? All gone. She gave them up when she walked to the altar, and not once did she ever think to turn round and catch one last glimpse of them as they left. Everything she could have been, _anything _she could have been, she gave up for this existence. She's not even sure if it was worth it.

Certainly, she has four children and can now call herself "Grandmother" as well. She's seen the fortunes of her family decline and then rise again, so meteorically that soon the cap was just a twinkle in the sky. She lives in material comfort and can clothe herself in materials that most only dream of ever wearing. To those who have only a superficial understanding of what it means to have wealth and high standing, to those who have never seen the underbelly, never seen the dark mirror, that sounds so much like the perfect life.

But to Shizuka, her life seems like nothing so much as an empty room. No matter how lovely the contours of the walls and the glass in the window frame, that doesn't change the truth that the room has no substance, no comfort, no chairs to sit in or beds to lie upon. Nothing about the empty room can change the fact that it is empty. It's not a home, simply a strip of potential that was never tapped.

She has wealth, but it never set her free.

She has children, but they never filled the yawning hole in her life.

She has a husband, but she was never able to call him "friend."

She has life, but it all came to naught.

Her eyes flicker to the door once again, before she tears them away and tells herself that Kinzo is not going to come. _But somehow, I find myself hoping, despite everything, that he will. Somehow, I'm able to watch that door and expect him to step over the threshold at any moment, despite knowing that he won't._

And did she ever have love? Did she ever have the very essence of life for her soul to drink?

Well that is something she will never know, because she wouldn't recognize the taste of love on her lips if it was given to her now.

To her right, Shizuka hears weeping. She tilts her head briefly in that direction, only to have to tear them away abruptly when she catches sight of the source. Rosa sits in the chair to the right of her bed, weeping softly into her palms. Natsuhi seems to notice at the same time as Shizuka, because she goes forward to pat the girl's shoulder and whisper gently into her ear. Shizuka puts the sound from her mind.

She would like very much to rise from this bed, and go downstairs and out to the garden. It's autumn now; all the petals from Kinzo's beloved crimson roses have withered and scattered away, carried off by the wind to her secret nest. Shizuka would very much like to linger to see winter, to see Kinzo's roses coated with glittering frost, the bushes wilting, drooping, dying, just as she knows they won't, but has always wished they would.

But the world is too much for her now, and the life needed to walk as a growing child would is beyond her now.

Kinzo has his mistress, that woman of the forest who wreaked such havoc on the wife of the man whose heart she stole. He'll bat an eyelid to her death, if he wants to appear proper, but by the day is out from its announcement, he'll have forgotten her entirely. The children will be much the same—even young and clingy Rosa will cast her pall off of her like a leaden cloak, and maybe Shizuka will be relieved to no longer have to listen to her cry. The world has simply passed her by, and will do so again.

She'll just float away on tear-stained brine, and with the last bit of volition she has, let her lungs finally fill with water.


End file.
